The Gospel According To Tolkien PDF

The Gospel According
to Tolkien
Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth
Ralph C. Wood
Westminster John Knox Press

LOUISVILLE • LONDON
© 2003 by Ralph C. Wood
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wood, Ralph C.
The gospel according to Tolkien : visions of the kingdom in middle-
earth / Ralph C. Wood.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-664-22610-8 (alk. paper)
1. Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973. Lord of the rings.
2. Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973—Religion. 3. Chris-
tianity and literature—England—History—20th century. 4. Christian fiction,
English—History and criticism. 5. Fantasy fiction, English—History and
criticism. 6. Christian ethics in literature. 7. Middle Earth (Imaginary place)
I. Title.
PR6039.O32L63 2003
823'.912—dc21
2003047901
For John Sykes
my student, friend, and companion in the Quest
Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 The Great Symphony of the Creation 11
2 The Calamity of Evil: The Marring of the Divine Harmony 48
3 The Counter-Action to Evil: Tolkien's Vision of the Moral Life 75
4 The Lasting Corrective: Tolkien's Vision of the Redeemed Life 117
5 Consummation: When Middle-earth Shall Be Unmarred 156
Bibliography 166
Acknowledgments 168
vn
Preface
is theological meditation on The Lord of the Rings does not

enter into the many debates among scholars about the various and
often conflicting interpretations of Tolkien. I seek nothing more or
less than to make the Christian dimension of this great book acces-
sible to the ordinary interested reader of Tolkien. Yet the absence
of footnotes hardly means that the author owes no debts. Quite to
the contrary, I am immensely grateful to the many Tolkien schol-
ars whose work I have silently drawn from. My treatment of the
classical virtues will reveal my obvious reliance on Josef Pieper's
classic little treatise, The Four Cardinal Virtues, even as my esti-
mate of the theological virtues, especially charity understood as
forgiveness, will disclose my continuing homage to the work of
Karl Barth. Paul J. Wadell's Friendship and the Moral Life has also
been indispensable for my thinking about the place of philia in the
life of the Fellowship.
The parenthetical citations refer to the standard cloth-bound
editions of major works by and about Tolkien, with the following
abbreviations: The Hobbit (H), The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (L),
The Silmarillion (S), "The Monsters and the Critics" and Other
Essays (MC), Morgoth's Ring (MR), The Peoples of Middle-earth
(PM), Smith of Wootton Major (SWM), and Humphrey Carpen-
ter's Tolkien: A Biography (T). The Lord of the Rings itself will be
paginated according to the three separate volumes—1: The Fel-
lowship of the Ring, 2: The Two Towers, and 3: The Return of the
King. All quotations from the Bible are taken from the Revised
Standard Version, since it retains the thee-you distinction that was
important to Tolkien. I have employed, again in faithfulness to
IX
x Preface
Tolkien's undeviating practice, his use of "man" and "men" to refer

to our common humanity. I have also followed his practice of lib-
erally capitalizing many nouns that are often put in the lower case.
This is not only a way of honoring the deeply Germanic bent of his
work but also of acknowledging his more important concern—not
to flatten everything into a bland egalitarian sameness, but rather to
exalt matters that truly deserve the upper case.
Clandestine readers of The Lord of the Rings behind the Iron
Curtain, where it was strictly forbidden, were called Tolkienisti. I
owe immeasurable gratitude to my many friends who are fellow
Tolkienisti: Mike Beaty, Kyle Childress, Bill Crow, Barry Harvey,
Russ Hightower, Christopher Mitchell, Scott Moore, Byron New-
berry, Mark Noll, Robin Reid, David and Jeanie Ryden, Adam
Schwartz, Gray Smith, Timothy Vaverek, and Robb Wilson. I want
also to commend several youngsters who, already as passionate
about The Lord of the Rings as their parents, represent the new
generation of Tolkien readers and future scholars: Joshua and
Gideon, the sons of Katherine and David Jeffrey; Kristen, Rob,
and Brandon, the children of Cheryl and Richard Myrick; Timo-
thy and Andrew, the sons of Wanda and Gray Smith; Nathaniel and
Andrew, the sons of Jennifer and Christopher Eberlein; Brittany,
Gerad, James, and Diana, the children of Michelle and Glenn
Gentry. I owe an especially large debt to my graduate assistant,
Don Shipley, to my student Paula Fluhrer, and to my dear wife,
Suzanne. They have read the manuscript and checked all the quo-
tations with painstaking and mind-numbing literalism. Five of my
Baylor students and colleagues—Ben Johnson, Helen Lasseter,
Mark Long, Elisabeth Wolfe, and Randy Woodruff—have all read
my manuscript-in-progress with immense care. Not only have they
saved me from many factual errors; they have also corrected many
misinterpretations, often supplying accurate ones in their stead. I
have shamelessly raided their ideas and insights.
My thanksgiving would not be complete without offering grati-
tude to the many audiences, both academic and ecclesial, who
have listened to my lectures and engaged me in lively discussion
of Tolkien's work. Here I can do no more than list the churches and
schools that have received me with extraordinary kindness: Mount
Preface xi
Tabor United Methodist in Winston-Salem, Park Cities Presbyter-

ian in Dallas, Saint Charles Avenue Baptist in New Orleans, Saint
Alban's Episcopal in Waco, Calvin College, the Cambridge School
of Dallas, Cleveland State University, the Duke University Divin-
ity School, Louisiana State University-Baton Rouge, Louisiana
State University-Shreveport, the University of Notre Dame, Ober-
lin College, the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State Univer-
sity, Southern Methodist University, Texas A&M University-
College Station, Texas A&M University-Commerce, and the
Texas Military Institute. There is not space to list the scores of stu-
dents from whom I learned much about Tolkien during the years
1986-97, when they took my course called "Faith and Imagina-
tion" at Wake Forest University, nor from the classes in the Oxford
Inklings that I have taught at Samford University, at Regent Col-
lege in Vancouver, and also at my beloved Baylor during the inter-
vening years. These students and many other Tolkienian friends
have joined me in forming a latter-day Company of the Little
People whose friendship is golden beyond all glitter.
This book is dedicated to my very first student, John D. Sykes
Jr. He entered Wake Forest as a freshman from a Baptist parson-
age in Norfolk at the same time I entered the university as a teacher
fresh from graduate study at the University of Chicago—in 1971.
If possible, my gourd was even greener than his. For more than
three decades, I have remained a grateful learner from this former
student. Like a true hobbit, John has graciously let me receive
credit for insights and ideas that truly belong to him. Never was
this reversal more fully demonstrated than when Sykes returned to
teach in my stead during my National Endowment for the Human-
ities Fellowship year, 1984-85. There at Wake Forest he began
offering a new and instantly popular course called "Faith and Fan-
tasy," which included the entire text of The Lord of the Rings. Fol-
lowing his example, I soon began to teach the same course. To my
surprise and delight, I came to discern the enduring greatness of
Tolkien's book. And in place of a dwindling student audience, I
found one that continues to expand even today. Hence my huge
double debt to John Sykes—not only for turning my teaching
career around, but also for the beginnings of this little book.
The Gospel According
to Tolkien
Introduction
ere is no denying the permanent appeal of J. R. R. Tolkien's epic

fantasy-novel, The Lord of the Rings. According to three different
polls, British readers declared it to be the most important book of
the twentieth century. The present study is not devoted to a defense
of this extravagant claim. Yet it is most certainly set against the
standard explanation of Tolkien's unprecedented readership. Many
highbrow critics charge that the masses are drawn to Tolkien
because he is an escapist writer. His work, they say, enables its read-
ers to flee from the horrors of modern life, to find refuge in a myth-
ical and unreal world. These critics are right to describe our age as
unspeakably terrible. More people were killed by violent means in
the twentieth century than in all of the previous centuries com-
bined—roughly 180 million. In our time the ratio of civilian to mil-
itary deaths has been exactly reversed: from 1:9 to 9:1. Pope John
Paul II has rightly called ours "the culture of death."
Yet it is exactly this world of unprecedented evil—of extermi-
nation ovens and concentration camps, of terrorist attacks and eth-
nic cleansings, of epidemic disease and mass starvation and deadly
material self-indulgence—that The Lord of the Rings addresses.
Far from encouraging us to turn away from such evils, Tolkien's
book forces us to confront them. Rather than grinding our faces in
these horrors, however, it suggests a cure for the ills of our age.
This great work enables us to escape into reality. Tolkien achieves
this remarkable accomplishment by embedding the Gospel as the
underlying theme of his book, its deep background and implicit
hope.
1
2 The Gospel According to Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings is a massive epic fantasy of more than half
a million words. It is also a hugely complex work, having its own
complicated chronology, cosmogony, geography, nomenclature,
and multiple languages—including two forms of elvish, Quenya
and Sindarin. The plot is so grand that it casts backward to the for-
mation of first things, while also glancing forward to the end of
time. How could such a huge and learned work—written by an oth-
erwise obscure Oxford philologist—have become an undisputed
classic? This book is intended to answer such a question by argu-
ing that much of its staying power resides in its implicit Chris-
tianity. The Gospel can be discerned, I will argue, in this book with
a pre-Christian setting. But before sketching out the case here to
be made, we would do well to attend to three complaints that have
repeatedly been raised against The Lord of the Rings.
The first is that Tolkien wrote a boy's adventure story that effec-
tively excludes one-half of our race. Tolkien is a male chauvinist,
these critics charge, because he includes only a handful of women
characters, and because he depicts these few women in highly ide-
alized terms. Quite to the contrary, as we shall discover, Tolkien's
women are not plaster figures. Galadriel the elven princess proves
to be terrible in her beauty—not treacly sweet and falsely pure; in
fact, she is an elf whose importance will diminish once the Ruling
Ring is destroyed. So is Eowyn a woman of extraordinary courage
and valor, a warrior who can hardly be called a shrinking violet or
simpering coquette. Though we see but little of Arwen, the elf-
maiden who has surrendered her immortality to wed Aragorn, there
is nothing saccharine about her character. Yet even this brief
defense of Tolkien's women characters misses the essential point—
namely, that Tolkien honors our universal humanity by insisting
that the desires of men and women are fundamentally the same, that
genital sexuality is not the chief of them, and that we are not divided
but united in our basic temptations and sins, our fundamental hopes
and longings. Nor is The Lord of the Rings a story about boys. Frodo
is fifty when he embarks upon the Quest, and Sam is roughly the
same age. Only Merry and Pippin can be called youths.
Tolkien is also criticized for creating a rural world that is irrel-
evant to modern urban life. It is true that the biblical vision of the
Introduction 3
ideal life is more urban than rural, and that, in the ancient world,
existence beyond the city walls was considered barbaric—the
realm of robbers and brigands. Yet it is unfair to assume that mod-
ern cities have much kinship with the biblical Jerusalem that is
exalted as the city of God (Ps. 46:4) and envisioned as the radically
renovated city of the world to come (Rev. 3:12). Tolkien regarded
our ugly and inhumane cities, far from being the normal state of
human existence, as degradations of civilized life.
It should also be remembered that, as the largest city of Europe,
London was until recently a patchwork quilt of neighborhoods—
each having its own separate identity and distinctive character.
Suburban sprawl has not only homogenized the capital city; it has
also meant the destruction of the beauty that once characterized
rural England. The ruination of the countryside was such a grief to
Tolkien that he stopped driving a car once he saw the ruin that
highways had caused. Tolkien exalts life in the Shire precisely
because it is a domesticated rather than an untamed region. A nat-
ural wilderness such as the Forest of Fangorn is an admirable place
precisely because it is uninhabited. Yet barbarism results when
men and other speaking creatures living in the natural world are
not subject to the order of civilization. The city and the wild are
meant to be symbiotic, each being humbled and invigorated by the
other. And while Tolkien offers the Shire as an exemplary human
community, he does not idealize life in Hobbiton. This village is
full of the same rivalries and factions and potential evils that
plague life in our own towns and cities. Frodo and Bilbo Baggins,
for example, have no use for their relatives, the greedy and uppity
Sackville-B agginses.
A third and far more serious complaint against Tolkien's Chris-
tian interpreters is that we are wrong to find any traces of the
Gospel in his book, since it contains no formal religion. It is true
that the hobbits do not pray, although the Niimenoreans pause
before meals. Neither do the Shire-dwellers build temples or make
ritual sacrifices. In extreme distress, however, Sam and Frodo cry
out to Elbereth—the elvish name for Varda, who is the wife of
Manwe and the compassionate queen of the stars. So is the elven-
food called lembas clearly reminiscent of the eucharistic wafer: its
airy lightness gives strength in direct disproportion to its weight.

Yet there is a deeper reason for Tolkien's omission of formal
religion from his book. He makes the mythical world of Middle-
earth non-religious, among other reasons, in order that we might
see Christianity reflected in it more clearly if also indirectly.
Readers of The Silmarillion are not surprised to learn that a full-
fledged theology lies in back of Tolkien's hobbit-books, and that
it silently informs The Lord of the Rings. As Tolkien himself
said, "The religious element is absorbed into the story and the
symbolism" (L, 172).
Tolkien's work is all the more deeply Christian for not being
overtly Christian. He would have violated the integrity of his art—
and thus the faithfulness of his witness—if he had written a 1,200-
page novel to illustrate a set of ideas that he could have expressed
apart from the story itself. This is a principle not only of good art
but also of good theology. God discloses himself in time and space
through his people Israel and his son Jesus—not as if they were
time-bound manifestations of his timeless nature, but because
there is no other way in which God could truly identify himself
except through their Story. The religious significance of The Lord
of the Rings thus arises out of its plot and characters, its images and
tone, its landscape and point of view—not from any heavy-handed
moralizing or preachifying. Even if we succeed in drawing out a
small portion of the novel's huge theological significance, it
should send us back to the story itself in eager desire to immerse
ourselves again in its rich complexity.
Tolkien clarified this matter considerably in his essay on
Beowulf entitled "The Monsters and the Critics." There he argued
that this seventh-century Anglo-Saxon poem was written by an
anonymous Christian, probably a monk, who poetically and faith-
fully narrated the legend of Beowulf's long battles, first with Gren-
del, then with his Mother, and finally with the Dragon—a struggle
in which, while the monsters are killed, so is Beowulf. The name-
less Christian who wrote Beowulf sought diligently to preserve the
brutality and grimness of the pagan life-world of the ancient Dan-
ish legend. Thus does he recount horrible fights and extol fierce
loyalties, even as he shows that these ancient warriors were all the
Introduction 5
more heroic for going down to death without hope of victory:

"men with courage as their stay went forward to that battle with
the hostile world and the offspring of the dark which ends for all,
even the kings and champions, in defeat" (MC, 18).
At the same time, this unnamed Christian poet imbued his non-
Christian story with Christian virtues and convictions. "The
author of Beowulf showed forth the permanent value of that
pietas," Tolkien writes, "which treasures the memory of man's
struggles in the dark past, man fallen and not yet saved, disgraced
but not dethroned" (MC, 23). In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien
follows the practice of the Beowulf-author. He creates a mythical
pre-Christian world where there is not yet a Chosen People, where
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob have not yet lived, where Moses
has not led Israel out of bondage, where the Hebrew prophets
have not spoken the word of the Lord, where God has not become
incarnate in Jesus Christ, nor has the church been established nor
its Message proclaimed to the nations. Yet for all this, Tolkien's
book is pre-Christian only in chronology, not in content. The
Gospel resounds in its depths.
This is not to call Tolkien's book a Christian allegory. Tolkien
confessed his "cordial dislike" of one-to-one correspondences. To
make one thing equal another is for the author to coerce the reader,
leaving no room for the free play of the imagination. In the fantasy
books of his friend C. S. Lewis, allegory plays a much larger role.
If in reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, for example,
we fail to see that Asian is a Christ-figure, we have missed the real
point of the book. This is nowhere the case in Tolkien. He much
prefers fantasy to allegory because it enables "varied applicability
to the thought and experience of readers" (1.7). He wants us to
discern likenesses and resemblances between the Ruling Ring and
the nuclear bomb, for instance, but not to equate them. So does
Mordor remind us of the death camps and the gulags and the forced
re-education farms, but its grimness would be no less deadly to
readers who knew nothing of the German and Soviet and Chinese
atrocities.
Neither are we meant to identify Gandalf as Christ, though he
is a wizard who lays down his life for his friends in death and who
is then miraculously restored to life. Neither is Frodo the allegor-

ical Son who is sacrificed by Bilbo the Father figure. Tolkien
seems to have had a strong sense of the once-and-for-all character
of God's revelation in Israel and Jesus. In a real sense, these defin-
itive acts of divine self-disclosure cannot be repeated, not even lit-
erarily. Gandalf does not die in atonement for anyone's sins, and if
he survives the end of all things it will be because he is one of the
maiar, not because, like Christ, he has been resurrected to die no
more. Nor does Gandalf alone possess Christ-like qualities.
Aragorn and Frodo and Sam Gamgee are also imbued with them.
For Tolkien, every Christian is meant to take on the form of Christ.
St. Paul admonishes all believers, in fact, to have "the mind of
Christ" (Phil. 2:5). Christians are thus summoned to become "lit-
tle Christs," incarnating our own versions of Gandalf and Aragorn,
Frodo and Sam, Faramir and Eowyn.
To speak in this fashion is obviously to go beyond Tolkien's
book. We must make clear, therefore, that unlike his friend C. S.
Lewis, Tolkien is no sort of evangelist. Tolkien the Catholic is con-
fident that the sacramental and missional life of the church will
convey the Gospel to the world without the assistance of his own
art. He wants his epic fantasy to stand on its own as a compelling
and convincing story, without any adventitious props. Yet it is not
apologetics alone that Tolkien seeks to avoid. He is also careful to
describe his art as "sub-creation" in order to differentiate it from
any sort of illusion—as if it were something entirely invented and
thus untrue. Tolkien taught that all human making is a re-forming
and re-ordering—for better and worse, for good and ill—of the pri-
mary world that God himself creates. Thus does he call his com-
plex Active world a sub-creation. It is a secondary world of
faerie—a realm of wonder and enchantment. It has nothing to do
with the fairies that Walt Disney reduced to harmless creatures flit-
ting about buttercups. In the elven language called Quenya,/az're
means spirit, for fairies or elves embody the living spirit of all cre-
ated things.
The essence of fairy-stories is that they satisfy our heart's deep-
est desire: to know a world other than our own, a world that has
not been flattened and shrunk and emptied of mystery. To enter this
Introduction 7
other world, the fairy tale resorts to fantasy in the literal sense. It
deals with phantasms or representations of things not generally
believed to exist in our primary world: elves (the older word for
fairies), hobbits, wizards, dwarves, Ringwraiths, wargs, ores, and
the like. Far from being unreal or fantastic in the popular sense,
these creatures embody the invisible qualities of the eternal
world—love and death, courage and cowardice, terror and hope—
that always impinge on our own visible universe. Fairy-stories
"open a door on Other Time," Tolkien writes, "and if we pass
through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own
time, outside Time itself, perhaps" (MC, 129). Hence Tolkien's
insistence that all fantasy-creations must have the mythic charac-
ter of the supernatural world as well as the historical consistency
of the natural world. The question to be posed for fantasy as also
for many of the biblical narratives is not, therefore, "Did these
things literally happen?" but "Does their happening reveal the
truth?"
We know fantasy to be true when it enables us "to converse with
other living things" than ourselves—namely, the animals and
plants with which we were once united, but from which we have
become alienated in our fallenness (MC, 152). Authentic fantasy
enables us to see the creation apart from ourselves and from our
degradation of it: to discern that horses may also be dragons, to
experience the deeps of the sea as a fish, to visit the heights of the
sky as a bird. Such encounters are the chief virtue of fantasy,
Tolkien insists, not its vice. He calls fantasy "the most nearly pure
form" of art as well as the most potent, at least on the rare occa-
sions when it is achieved (MC, 139). Far from denying and insult-
ing reason, fantasy fulfills its deepest urges. It satisfies even the
human appetite for "scientific verity" (MC, 144), Tolkien insists,
by overcoming "the drab blur of triteness or familiarity." Only
through fantasy are we able to discern the sheer originality and
queerness of ordinary things, the surprising strangeness of "stone,
and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine"
(MC, 146^17).
This final eucharistic phrase points to the heart of the Christian
mystery. It is a mystery that, according to Tolkien, lies at the core
of fairy-stories. They strike deeper truth than other literary forms

precisely because of their happy endings—not in spite of them.
True fantasies end happily, thus providing consolation for life's
tragedy and sorrow. But their endings are not escapist. Their felic-
itous outcome is always produced by a dreadful disaster, by a dras-
tic and unexpected turn of events, which issues in surprising
deliverance. Tolkien calls this saving mishap a eucatastrophe: a
happy calamity that does not deny the awful reality of dyscata-
strophe—of human wreck and ruin. The ending of Tolkien's book
is immensely sad because Frodo is too exhausted by his struggle
with evil to enjoy the fruits of his victory. Yet the miraculously vio-
lent turnabout—the final clash with Sauron that issues in his
defeat—reveals that the ultimate truth is joy—"Joy beyond the
walls of the world, poignant as grief (MC, 153).
Tolkien links his word eucatastrophe with the word evan-
gelium: the one is a good catastrophe and the other is the Good
News. Like C. S. Lewis, Tolkien regards many of the world's
myths and fairy-stories as forerunners and preparations of the
Gospel—as fallible human attempts to tell the Story that only the
triune God can tell perfectly. The Gospel is the ultimate fairy-story,
Tolkien concludes, because it contains "the greatest and most com-
plete conceivable eucatastrophe.... There is no tale ever told that
men would rather find was true, and none which so many scepti-
cal men have accepted as true on its own merits. . . . To reject it
leads either to sadness or to wrath" (MC, 156).
The Gospel is more than a fairy-story because it is not a human
discovery or invention: it is an actuality that occurred in space and
time. Christ was actually born, and he actually lived and died and
was resurrected. Here is God's own Story wherein the Teller of the
tale becomes its chief Actor. Rather than canceling all other sto-
ries, however, this one is what they have all been stumbling and
pointing toward. The Gospel is the fulfillment and completion of
all other stories. Hence the three massive eucatastrophes that
Tolkien discerns as forming the essential plot of the Christian
story: (1) the Incarnation as the eucatastrophe of human history, as
God's taking on human form is met (but not overcome) with the
exile of the Holy Family into Egypt as well as the Slaughter of the
Introduction 9
Innocents; (2) the Good Friday-and-Easter event as the eucata-

strophe of Jesus' own life, as his violent death and vindicating res-
urrection issue in the world's redemption; (3) the Second Coming
as the grand eucatastrophe of both secular and Christian history,
when the horrors of Armageddon will produce the unending Joy of
life in the world to come:
[T]his story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God
is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and
History have met and fused.
But in God's kingdom the presence of the greatest does not
depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man. Story, fantasy,
still go on, and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated
legends; it has hallowed them, especially the "happy ending."
The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to
suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents
and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. (MC,
156)
The Lord of the Rings is the supreme exemplification of this
claim made in 1938, sixteen years before Tolkien published his
epic fantasy. He would later call his book "a fundamentally reli-
gious and Catholic work." Its essential conflict, he insisted, con-
cerns God's "sole right to divine honour" (L, 243). Virtually the
entire Gospel can be discerned in this triple-decker that Tolkien
labored so diligently, in both mind and body, to bring to comple-
tion during the dark years of World War II, often without hope of
its ever coming to print. We shall trace the way it discloses—not
by overt preachment but by covert suggestion—the principal
claims of Christian faith. In so doing, I shall undertake not a schol-
arly study so much as a theological meditation on The Lord of the
Rings. Accordingly, I shall use the major doctrines of the Christian
faith as the template for my reading of Tolkien.
In chapter one, we shall examine how Tolkien views God's
creative activity in the work of Iliivatar, the All-Father who not
only works at the origin of all things but who also remains con-
tinually active in the providential order of the world's history.
From Creation we shall turn in chapter two to Calamity—to the
Fall that occurred even before Middle-earth was made but whose
consequences did not infect the whole creation. Our task there
will be to fathom the mystery of iniquity—how the rebel Mor-
goth and his lieutenant Sauron seek both to seduce and over-
power the unique children of Iluvatar: elves and men. We shall
be especially concerned to examine more specifically the three
deadly powers that the One Ruling Ring affords—invisibility,
longevity, and the coercion of will—showing how they remain
demonic temptations in our own world no less than in The Lord
of the Rings.
In the succeeding chapters, we shall seek to plumb the mystery
that is far greater and deeper than iniquity—the mystery of good-
ness and redemption. Because the Gospel is fundamentally good
news rather than ill tidings, we will treat Tolkien's positive visions
of the Kingdom at considerably greater length. In chapter three,
therefore, we will engage Tolkien's profound understanding of the
Human Counter-Action that is necessary if the calamity of evil is
not to prevail. Here we shall examine the moral and spiritual life
as various characters either succeed or fail in cultivating the four
cardinal or moral virtues: prudence, justice, courage, and temper-
ance. In chapter four, we will consider the Divine Corrective made
possible through the three theological virtues as they are given
incarnate life by the hobbits and their friends: faith as friendship,
hope as the desire for a fulfillment "beyond the walls of the world,"
and love as the forgiveness that brings something genuinely new
into the world. Finally in chapter five, we shall glance briefly at
one of the most puzzling of all paradoxes in Tolkien—why the
ending of the Third Age, when wizards and elves were dominant,
is not a forecast of catastrophe, and thus why the coming Fourth
Age of Men is a sign of Consummation.
Chapter One
The Great Symphony of the Creation
1 olkien's world is thoroughly theocentric. It is inescapably God-

centered. The first seventeen pages of The Silmarillion contain
Tolkien's compelling account of Iliivatar's creation and sustenance
of the universe. Not only is it one of his most original and beauti-
ful pieces of writing, it also serves as the foundation for everything
else. The parallels with Genesis are unmistakable. The cosmos as
Tolkien envisions it is not a solitary and finished act but an ongo-
ing communal process. Iliivatar accomplishes his creative will by
way of intermediaries that we would call angels but that Tolkien
calls valar and maiar. As a universe wherein no one's will is
coerced, it contains the possibility of rebellion against Eru, another
name for Iliivatar. Alas, there are valar and maiar who reject his
rule. Yet the dissonance that they introduce into Iliivatar's world
cannot silence the harmony that he is determined to bring about.
Like the God of the Bible, Iliivatar refuses to stamp out evil by
force. He redeems the world by the uncoercive workings of Provi-
dence. It operates not only according to the laws of the natural
order, but also with the constant involvement and participation of
the divine mind and will. Tolkien describes the providential order-
ing of the cosmos as "God's management of the Drama" (MR, 329).
The universe as Tolkien conceives it is hierarchical. It is a hugely
complex and carefully differentiated universe, forming a great chain
of being that stretches from Iliivatar all the way down to the inert
minerals. Yet the hierarchy of Arda (the cosmos) and Ea (the solar
11
system) is not a fixed and frozen order. Tolkien does not give imag-
inative life to a static universe where (as in much of paganism)
everything remains in its original station. On the contrary, there is
room for development and alteration. There is also room for
choice—and thus for the tragedy and inconsolable grief that are
endemic to mortal life. But chiefly it is a universe that features a
mighty possibility of growth and change—all prompted by free acts
of the will. These actions lead to movement either up or down the
great ladder of being. We shall discover wizards and elves, hobbits
and men, who are all ascending from lower to higher and better, but
we shall also encounter those who are descending from higher to
lower and worse. Just as the most powerful of the valar can commit
acts of horrific destruction, so can the lowliest hobbit—like the
lowliest and most ordinary person—accomplish deeds of incompa-
rable importance and worth. But they do so only in concord with the
essential themes and motifs of Iluvatar's great symphonic creation.
The Origin and End of Life
Tolkien's pre-Christian world does not know God as Trinity, but

rather as the One. Just as the Old Testament is monotheistic, so is
there but one God of Middle-earth. Yet in Genesis we hear God
somewhat strangely declaring, "Let us make man in our image"
(1:26). The pronoun may point to the heavenly court, as if God
employed intermediate beings to assist him in his action. Chris-
tians have rightly seen this plural reference as a foreshadowing of
the Trinity, as a sign that God is never alone but that he always
exists in triune community.
Tolkien has a similar conception of God as acting communally.
Iluvatar rarely creates in solitude but usually in company. But
unlike the Son and Holy Spirit, who are co-creators with the
Father, Iluvatar employs his valar as ancillaries in the act of cre-
ation. Nothing even remotely polytheistic is suggested here. The
valar are not divinities but subordinate beings whom Iluvatar has
created with the Flame Imperishable of his own Spirit. It is true
that, as patrons of the various creative qualities and powers resi-
The Great Symphony of the Creation 13
dent in the cosmos, the valar function in ways that are akin to
Egyptian or Greco-Roman or Scandinavian deities. Yet nowhere in
Middle-earth are they worshiped. On the contrary, the single deity
of Arda and Ea is Iluvatar, who has imbued the entire cosmos with
his Spirit. There is nothing, therefore, that does not bear his cre-
ative imprint. As Tolkien reiterates endlessly, we ourselves are
makers because we have been made. In three immense visions, Eru
revealed his cosmic design to the valar and then instructed them to
enact it. Tolkien specifies the five stages in Creation as follows:
a. The creation of the Ainur [valar]. b. The communication by
Eru of his Design to the Ainur. c. The Great Music, which was
as it were a rehearsal, and remained in the stage of thought or
imagination, d. The "Vision" of Eru, which was again only a
foreshadowing of possibility, and was incomplete, e. The
Achievement, which is still going on. (MR, 336)
The chief task of the valar was to prepare the earth for the com-
ing of the two creatures who are Iluvatar's own directly created
Children—namely, elves and men. Fifteen of these angelic valar
are named. They are pure spirits, having no natural bodily exis-
tence and thus no mortal limits. Yet they assume shape and gender,
both masculine and feminine, in order that the Children of Iluvatar
might know and love them all—except, of course, the one rebel
who sought to frustrate Iluvatar's will for the world.
Tolkien's providentially ordered cosmos is immensely varied
and complex. Its unity is not dully monolithic but interestingly dif-
ferentiated. There are several elven folk, three different groups of
men, multiple kinds of dwarves, and scores of fauna and flora with
specific and often original names. By giving special qualities and
powers to each of these beings, Tolkien reveals the wondrous par-
ticularity and divine givenness of many things that we take for
granted. Among the valar, for example, Manwe is the noblest and
mightiest, and he is known chiefly for his compassion. His spouse
Varda made the stars, established the sun and the moon in their
courses, and set the morning and evening star Earendil in the sky.
The elves call her Elbereth and Gilthoniel, the Star-Queen and
Star-Kindler. Like the Virgin Mary in Catholic and Orthodox
tradition, she hears the pleas of both men and elves, coming to their
aid. Many religions and philosophies associate light with truth, but
Tolkien is distinctively Christian in linking this light with the
mercy of Manwe and Varda—just as Jesus the all-compassionate
Savior is also called the Light of the World.
The other valar have special powers that serve to enliven our
imagination and appreciation of earthly blessings. Aule is master
of crafts and skilled artifacts, and his spouse Yavanna is creator of
the Ents, one of Tolkien's most marvelous inventions—the tree-
herds. Ulmo ("pourer, rainer") is the lord of waters. Irmo ("master
of desire") is the author of dreams and visions, and his spouse Este
("rest") has created the most beautiful gardens in Valinor, the
heaven on earth where the valar dwell. Nienna is the sister of
Manwe, and her tears bring healing. Orome ("horn-blowing") is
the great hunter and battler, and his spouse Vana is the special
friend of flowers and birds, both of whom rejoice when she is near.
Tulkas is the strongest of the valar, loving deeds of prowess and
having great gifts of wrestling and running. He is wed to Nessa,
who is linked both to deer and dancing, being lithe and swift of
foot. These seemingly ordinary gifts are not human accomplish-
ments alone, Tolkien suggests, but also heaven-inspired blessings.
The Omnipresence of Fate, Death, and Doom

It is important to remember that Tolkien is creating a mythical
rather than a historical world. Yet Middle-earth has history-like
qualities that profoundly link it with our own history and time.
Tolkien honors, for example, the deep fatalism that characterizes
pagan life—whether it be the contemporary paganism of the late
modern West, or the far nobler kind that prevailed in ancient Ger-
many and Scandinavia as well as antique Greece and Rome. For
example, Namo, also called Mandos ("prison-fortress"), renders
judgment on all those who come to the Houses of the Dead. His
spouse Vaire weaves past events into tapestries that tell the history
of all things within Time. She perhaps echoes Clotho, one of the
three Greek Fates. Clotho spun the web of life, while Lachesis
measured its length and Atropos cut it off. Whether in the world of
the Greeks or the Norse, Fate is so strong that not even the gods
can alter it.
Yet as a Christian writer, Tolkien also modifies the pagan con-
ception of fate to imply its providential direction. Merry and Pip-
pin escape imprisonment at the hands of the ore named Grishnakh
when he is killed by a Rider of Rohan just as the ore is about to
slay the two hobbits. The narrator makes clear that more than one
power is at work here: "An arrow came whistling out of the gloom:
it was aimed with skill, or guided by fate, and it pierced [Grish-
nakh's] right hand." So does the Rohirrim's horse mysteriously
avoid trampling the hobbits in the dark: "Whether because of some
special keenness of sight, or because of some other sense, the horse
lifted and sprang lightly over them; but its rider did not see them,
lying covered in their elven-cloaks, too crushed for the moment,
and too afraid to move" (2.60).
A pagan sense of Doom—the notion that the world's outcome is
unalterably bent toward final destruction—resounds like a dread
drumbeat throughout The Lord of the Rings. Yet Tolkien also gives
the word the triple meaning of destiny, calamity, and judgment. As
destiny, it signifies that every living thing has its own peculiar mor-
tality; as calamity it means that many things end ill; but also ^judg-
ment it betokens everyone's final state as determined by the just and
merciful verdict of Iluvatar. The double-sidedness of doom is evi-
dent in the relation of Mandos and Manwe. As Eru's doom-sayer,
Mandos is inflexibly merciless, dealing out judgments where they
are justly deserved. Yet Mandos the strict and Manwe the merciful
constantly confer with Iluvatar, who has the ultimate word. Thus
does pity balance judgment even in Tolkien's pre-Christian world.
Yet it doesn't banish the lowering cloud that shadows everything.
The dour character of heathen life was famously described by the
Venerable Bede, an Anglo-Saxon monk-historian of the seventh and
eighth centuries. Bede recorded the saying of a Northumbrian chief-
tain who likened pagan existence to a sparrow flying into one end of
a banquet hall and out the other. For the ancients of the far North,
everything springs from cold black nothingness, enters into a brief
moment of warmth and light called life, and then returns to the dark
void whence it came. The monsters that populate the myths of the
ancient North are embodiments of this dark void. They are the foes
not only of men but also of the gods—both of whom they would
finally defeat. In the end, chaos and unreason will triumph. Our
Scandinavian and Teutonic forebears were thus mortalists: they
believed that Ragnarok would mean the final destruction even of
heaven and hell. So are most modern men and women mortalists
also—except that the ancient Ragnarok has been replaced with the
contemporary dread of terrorist attacks and nuclear strikes. Our only
common belief is the fear of death. We fear it because beyond the
grave, as the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, there is
nothing. When we die, we rot.
Tolkien refuses to dismiss this dark view of death in either its
ancient or modern form. "A Christian," he writes, "was (and is) still
like his forefathers a mortal hemmed in a hostile world" (MC, 22).
As himself a Christian, Tolkien honors the scandalous hope for the
bodily resurrection of the dead that leads to Eternal Life by not
including it in his pre-Christian epic—lest we think that it is some-
how the natural outcome of mortal life. After his battle with the
Balrog, Gandalf is not resurrected but resuscitated. He is brought
back to life after having been killed. Tolkien knows that, while there
have been many resuscitations, there is only one Resurrection. Like
Frodo, Gandalf at the end sets sail for the Grey Havens and thence
to the unfallen elven realm called Valinor. But this earthly paradise
too will one day perish when all things come to their end. Yet
beyond or by means of this awful destruction, Arda will ultimately
be healed. Tolkien hints at this blessed life to come when, near the
end of The Hobbit, the dwarf-warrior Thorin Oakenshield bids
farewell to Bilbo: "I go now to the halls of waiting to sit beside my
fathers, until the world is renewed" (H, 243).
Death is the omnipresent reality in The Lord of the Rings. Its
presence serves as a caveat against the life-worship that is the
unofficial faith of the modern world. The constant iteration of the
word "doom" solemnly reminds readers that we are not the final
arbiters of our own lives, much less the world's life. Tolkien never
lets us forget that no battle is finally won, no victory permanently
achieved—not in this world at least—just as every triumph creates
a host of new perplexities. The ending of The Lord of the Rings—
where the defeat of evil is muted by an enormous grief at the depar-

ture of Gandalf and Frodo and Bilbo and the elves—can be read
without tears only by the flint-hearted. C. S. Lewis rightly noted
that a "profound melancholy" pervades the whole of Tolkien's
book, even if the sadness serves to enhance the joy. Haldir the elf
voices this paradox touchingly: "The world is indeed full of peril,
and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is
fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it
grows perhaps the greater" (1.363).
Lest this poignant realism seem somehow sub-Christian, we
should remember that a melancholy air also infuses much of Scrip-
ture, and that Hebrew wisdom is built on an unflinching honesty
about death. It is not surprising to learn that Tolkien helped with
the translation of the Jerusalem Bible, especially the book of
Jonah, the whining prophet, the one who pouts when wicked Nin-
eveh harkens to his prophecy. Yet it is the voices of Job and Isaiah
whose cadences and sentiments resound most clearly in Tolkien's
tragic sense of our human mortality. "Man is born to trouble as the
sparks fly upward" (Job 5:7). "All flesh is grass, and all its beauty
is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people is
grass" (Isa. 40:6-7).
More pertinent still for understanding Tolkien's sense of the
world's melancholy is the book of Ecclesiastes. Among its many
memorable lines, perhaps these are the most unforgettable: "The
sun rises and the sun goes down... and there is nothing new under
the sun" (1:5,9). So does the Preacher also declare that "all is van-
ity and a striving after wind" (1:14). Death, in this view, means that
"man goes to his eternal home" (12:5), the tomb. "Remember also
your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come,
. . . before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken"
(12:1, 6). Faramir, the noble warrior of Gondor, echoes such
Hebraic wisdom when he reminds Frodo and Sam that, no matter
how idyllic their life in the Shire may have been, it is like all
earthly beauty and goodness: it cannot last. "Folk must grow
weary there," Faramir observes of the Shire, "as do all things under
the Sun of this world" (2.290).
It might seem that the elves, because they are immortal, would be
sunny and endlessly cheerful creatures. It is not so. Part of their
gloom derives from their early rejection of Iluvatar's will that they
live in Valinor. Yet they are somber creatures also because their bod-
ies gradually fade over time. Their long lives enable them to know
the entire course of history, from its beginning through its middle
and now to the threatened end of Middle-earth. Such comprehensive
knowledge of the fallen creation fills the elf Legolas with a deep sad-
ness. "Alas for us all!" he cries. "And for all that walk the world in
these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems
to those whose boat is on the running stream. . . . The passing sea-
sons are but ripples ever repeated in the long long stream. Yet
beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last" (1.395,405).
A little-noted change in Tolkien's work occurs between the writ-
ing of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. In the former,
Tolkien is so overwhelmingly indebted to the world of Scandina-
vian mythology that his outlook remains exceedingly bleak. But
when he came to introduce the hobbits into the gigantic mythology
he had been creating for many years, Tolkien's vision turned con-
siderably brighter. Perhaps the change is due to the perky character
of the hobbits themselves, or perhaps Tolkien came to see how
much he remained a Christian even as he was also a lover of things
ancient and Anglo-Saxon. In any case, there is an undeniable hope-
fulness inherent in the hobbit epic. This odd cheer is made evident
when Treebeard the Ent reflects on the fundamental transience of
earthly existence, now that he has witnessed the ore-slaughter of his
precious trees. He finds solace in knowing that, even in defeat, "we
may help other peoples before we pass away." Treebeard possesses
what might well be called the essential Tolkienian demeanor—a
fundamental somberness about the world's state, yet with an over-
riding joy that cannot be quenched: "Pippin could see a sad look in
his eyes, sad but not unhappy" (2.90).
The hobbits and the other Free Peoples always look westward
for help, even though it is the place of sunset and thus of the death
that brings sadness into the world. Nearly all threat of evil, by con-
trast, proceeds from the east. Traditional Christian symbolism, by
contrast, looks upon the horizon of the rising sun as the locus of
hope. Christians are buried facing eastward, not toward the dying
light of the west. Some readers have interpreted Tolkien's exalta-
tion of the west as the sign of a chauvinism that elevates Western
Christian culture over the sinister powers of various eastern totali-
tarianisms—whether Soviet or Chinese or perhaps even German.
This ignores the fact that, as a student of ancient languages and peo-
ples, Tolkien knew well that Christianity had already survived the
collapse of Greco-Roman civilization, and thus that it can never be
equated with the culture of the West. Even if the West were not
crumbling, the Gospel would still remain its critic and transformer,
never the mere religious expression of occidental cultural life.
The answer to this seeming anomaly lies in Tolkien's con-
fessed desire to write an epic in honor of his own country that, as
with ancient epics, would embody the highest virtues and tradi-
tions of his people. And since England constitutes the northwest
corner of ancient Christendom, and while most of the pagan
totalitarianisms of his century came from the east, it is altogether
fitting that he should have reversed the traditional geographical
symbolism.
Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since
fallen) I had in mind to make a body of more or less connected
legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of
romantic fairy-story—the larger founded on the lesser in contact
with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast back-
cloths-which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my
country. It should possess the tone and quality that I desired,
somewhat cool and clear, be redolent of our "air" (the clime and
soil of the North West, meaning Britain and the hither parts of
Europe; not Italy or the Aegean, still less the East), and, while
possessing (if I could achieve it) the fair elusive beauty that some
call Celtic (though it is rarely found in genuine ancient Celtic
things), it should be "high," purged of the gross, and fit for the
more adult mind of a land long now steeped in poetry. I would
draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only
placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked
to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and
hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd. (L, 144-45)
The Essential Goodness of the Natural Order

The fact that life is shadowed by death does not make it evil. On the
contrary, the omnipresence of death renders life immensely pre-
cious, even if it can never be the summum bonum, our highest good.
Tolkien envisions the creation as a blessing and never a curse, just
as Yahweh beholds his cosmos and declares it "very good" (Gen.
1:31). Tolkien's world is not the product of a struggle between good
and evil deities, as in many pagan religions. Life in Middle-earth is
not a contest between equally malign and benign forces—with
mortal creatures serving as mere pawns in a great cosmic warfare.
Tolkien the Christian refuses any such dualism. On the contrary, all
things proceed from Iluvatar and all things return to him, even
though demonic powers come to exercise a frightful force within
his world. The elves and dwarves and men and hobbits are won-
drously free creatures, not playthings of the gods. Tolkien's cosmos
is a vast unitary work whose permanent shape and blessed outcome
Iluvatar has determined from the outset.
Frodo gets a glimpse of the original unmarred goodness of cre-
ation when he and the other members of the Company enter the
elven realm of Lothlorien created by the elven princess Galadriel.
Like the elves themselves, it is a timeless land. Although Galadriel
joined her ancestors in rebelling against the will of Iluvatar, she has
preserved Lorien from the shadow of evil. There is an undying
quality about Lorien that makes Sam Gamgee feel as if he were
"inside a song" (1.365). Frodo himself stands awestruck, "lost in
wonder," at his first sight of Lorien. It's almost as if he were Adam,
the first person to behold the newly minted world, ready to name
all the living things, identifying every texture and color and sound:
It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that

looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his
language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the
shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first con-
ceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as
if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he
knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh
and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them
and made for them names new and wonderful. In winter here no
heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish of sick-
ness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the
earth. On the land of Lorien there was no stain. (1.365)
Iluvatar's once-unharmed creation has been marred by an evil
that corrupts not only the moral life of free creatures; it also lays
waste to the natural order. The Dead Marshes are the blasted heath
where the corpses of the dead who fell to Sauron and his minions
lie visibly preserved beneath the water. This world that was meant
to teem with living things has been turned into a forbidding moor.
Beyond the marshes lies Mordor itself, Sauron's cruel realm, a vast
wilderness of stench and smoke and death:
Here nothing lived, not even the leprous growths that feed on
rottenness. The gasping pools were choked with ash and crawl-
ing muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vom-
ited thefilthof their entrails upon the lands about. High mounds
of crushed and powdered rock, great cones of earth fire-blasted
and poison-stained, stood like an obscene graveyard in endless
rows, slowly revealed in the reluctant light.... The sun was up,
walking among clouds and long flags of smoke, but even the
sunlight was defiled. (2.239)
As always, Tolkien has our own world in mind when he describes
such desolation. He decried the destruction of humane life in our
modern cities—not only the poisonous air created by factories and
the rabbit-warren crowding of slum housing, but also the repetitive
work that dampens the spirit and kills the imagination. He lamented
the ravaging of rural England by automobile traffic, and he waxed
satirical against those who called him an escapist for creating the
fantastic world of Middle-earth: "The notion that motor-cars are
more 'alive' than, say, centaurs or dragons is curious; that they are
more 'real' than, say, horses is pathetically absurd. How real, how
startlingly alive is a factory chimney compared with an elm-tree:
poor obsolete thing, insubstantial dream of an escapist!" (MC, 149).
Yet Tolkien the lover of nature is no sentimentalist about it. In
one of his last writings, Smith of Wootton Major, he declares that
the realm of Faerie—the imaginary realm where the ordinary
realities of the natural world are made fantastically real—con-

tains marvels that "cannot be approached without danger." Many
of its threats, he adds, "cannot be challenged without weapons of
power too great for any mortal to wield." Smith's confrontation
with the Wind is an example of these perils that belong to the
good creation yet remain inimical to human life. Like Job,
Tolkien acknowledges the fearful power of earthquakes and tor-
nadoes, of typhoons and disease. They seem to confirm David
Hume's contention that "man matters not to nature more than an
oyster." In Tolkien no less than Tennyson, nature is "red in tooth
and claw," as Smith is made to learn:
At once the breeze rose to a wild Wind, roaring like a great
beast, and it swept [Smith] up and flung him on the shore, and
it drove him up the slopes whirling and falling like a dead leaf.
He put his arms about the stem of a young birch and clung to it,
and the Wind wrestled fiercely with them, trying to tear him
away; but the birch was bent down to the ground by the blast
and enclosed him in its branches. When at last the Wind passed
on he rose and saw that the birch was naked. It was stripped of
every leaf, and it wept, and tears fell from its branches like rain.
He set his hand upon its white bark, saying, "Blessed be the
birch! What can I do to make amends or give thanks?" He felt
the answer of the tree pass up from his hand: "Nothing," it said.
"Go away! The Wind is hunting you. You do not belong here.
Go away and never return!" (SWM, 32)
In penning such a frightening account of nature's antipathy to
certain kinds of human life, Tolkien may well have been thinking
of Psalm 148:7-8: "Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea mon-
sters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind ful-
filling his command!" The trail-blocking snowstorm on Mount
Caradhras is another example of inimical natural forces that have
no explanation. "There are many evil and unfriendly things in the
world," explains Aragorn, "that have little love for those that go
on two legs, and yet are not in league with Sauron, but have pur-
poses of their own. Some have been in this world longer than he"
(1.302).
The Delights of Bodily Comfort

Not only in Mordor has nature been pillaged and raped. When the
Company at last returns to the Shire at the end of their year-long
Quest, they discover that an ugly and stench-making industry has
been planted in its midst. Their once-organic community has been
transformed into a heartless bureaucracy as well. Not the least sign
of the joyless new obsession with efficiency and productivity is
that all the Hobbiton pubs have been closed. Tolkien is no puritan.
As an unabstemious Catholic, he stands in the line of Hilaire Bel-
loc and G. K. Chesterton as a defender of beer and burgundy and
all other good things that please the palate and ease the burdens of
mortal life. That the hobbits are lovers of ale and pipeweed is a sign
not of their self-indulgence but of their joie de vivre. They agree
with the Psalmist's declaration that "wine . . . gladden[s] the heart
of man" (104:15). Beer and tobacco enhance the social life of the
hobbits, heightening their enjoyment of each other's company,
rather than leading them to solitary addiction. Their delight in
these salutary products of Iluvatar's good creation enables them to
raise "the flag of the world," as Chesterton called it.
The drinking song that Frodo remembers at the Prancing Pony
in Bree is a joyous salute to "a beer so brown." But it is also a
reminder that even a seemingly nonsensical nursery rhyme such as
"Hey, diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle" probably had its ori-
gins in a merry-making occasion. The songs and poems that the
hobbits sing and recite serve to deepen our love and sharpen our
sense of the delight to be found in ordinary things—and thus of the
wonder inherent in such simple gifts as fresh air and broad light,
deep sleep and hot baths.
Sing hey! for the bath at the close of day

that washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.

and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high

in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
(1.111)
The hobbits are unabashed lovers of food, enjoying six meals a

day. Not for them our late-modern and quasi-gnostic obsession with
slimriess. Tolkien would have agreed with the novelist Tom Wolfe's
lament that America is the country where no one can ever be too
rich or too slender. The feast laid on at the Inn of Bree is a celebra-
tion of a homely and humble cuisine that features the gift of simple
food rather than fastidious gourmandizing: "There was hot soup,
cold meats, a blackberry tart, new loaves, slabs of butter, and half
a ripe cheese: good plain food, as good as the Shire could show"
(1.166). Even Barliman Butterbur's name suggests the hops that he
brews and the fat that seasons his cooking. Yet food is far more than
physical sustenance for the Company; their shared meals also
renew their spirits. Nowhere is their communal existence more
fully realized than in their feasting. The sacramental quality of their
life is also suggested in the elven waybread called lembas. It is light
and airy and almost substanceless, giving strength and hope in
miraculous disproportion to its heft, feeding the will if not the body.
The hobbits' physique reveals this same paradox that greatness
may be found in smallness. Tolkien makes them diminutive crea-
tures in order to challenge our obsession with largeness. For the
hobbits, bigger does not mean better, and small can indeed be
beautiful. They do not dwell in skyscrapers nor even multistory
houses, but in low, tunnelly homes that hug the fertile earth. Their
enlarged feet make them swift in movement and adept at tramping
the land that they truly inhabit. Traveling by foot enables them to
appreciate the splendid (and sometimes awful) particularities of
the world as faster modes of travel do not.
Tolkien was appalled by our modern obsession with speedy
locomotion. It annihilates space, he said, blinding us to the glories
that we are traversing. As with much of modern technology, he

feared that jet travel is yet another instance of what Thoreau called
"improved means to unimproved ends." We take off from New York
or Atlanta and land in Cairo or Delhi a few hours later, as if these
vastly different cities in vastly different countries were abstract and
featureless places, mere dots on a map. No wonder that Tolkien
penned a tart note to one year's income tax payment, refusing his
support of supersonic jet travel: "Not a penny for Concorde."
As lovers of the good creation, the hobbits are not consumers.
They are not convinced that happiness lies in things that can be
purchased and devoured; they are not getters and spenders who lay
waste to their powers. The hobbits' sod-covered homes, for
example, are built to endure and to be permanently occupied, not
to be purchased as a speculative investment and then abandoned
as soon as the owners can afford something "better." Already in the
1930s, when he was writing both The Hobbit and The Lord of the
Rings, Tolkien discerned that a materialist culture of consumption
and convenience was triumphing in the West, and he offered the
hobbit way of life as witness against it.
Another sign of the hobbitic love for all humanly created goods
is to be found in their refusal to throw things away. They store
seemingly useless articles for future use, calling their collected
stuff mathom. Far from being "junk" that we would discard, these
leftovers are precious matter to the hobbits, for the word mathom
means "treasure" in Anglo-Saxon. So little are hobbits absorbed
with their possessions that—like Native Americans at their pot-
latch ceremonies—they give rather than receive gifts on their
birthdays. Their gift-giving enables them to honor their earthly
goods without turning them into idols. Though they know nothing
of the Blessed Life to come, they are not far from the Kingdom in
heeding the injunction given in the Sermon on the Mount: "Do not
lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust con-
sume and where thieves break in and steal" (Matt. 6:19).
It is not surprising to learn that Tolkien thought of himself as a hob-
bit, and that he identified himself with these creatures whose ambi-
tions and imaginations may be small but whose courage is great.
Hence his practice of their humble and self-deprecating habits:
I am in fact a hobbit, in all but size. I like gardens, trees, and

unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain
food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like, and even
dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond
of mushrooms (out of afield);have a very simple sense of humour
(which even my appreciative criticsfindtiresome); I go to bed late
and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much. (T, 176)
Tolkienian Love of All Things That

Grow Slowly, Especially Trees
Most of the free creatures in Tolkien's world reverence the good

creation with their craftsmanship. A craft requires lifelong disci-
pline and laborious effort, unlike the instantaneous results of magic.
Gandalf's fireworks, by contrast, are matters of skill and labor
rather than sorcery—even if his wand seems to be a supernatural
gift. Once Gandalf suspects that Bilbo has come into possession of
the magical Ruling Ring, he spends many decades in his quest to
confirm his hunch. Repeatedly Tolkien stresses the importance of
patience, the willingness to avoid the shortcut and the easy way,
recommending instead the slow and arduous path that leads to
every excellence. Anything worth doing well is worth doing slowly.
The Ents, the fourteen-foot creatures who serve as shepherds of
the forest, are telling examples of Tolkien's love of slowness. For
them, even the hobbits are too hasty a people. The Ents have taken
on the ponderous deliberateness of nature itself, with movements
almost as imperceptible as the growth of trees. Hence Pippin's first
impression of them:
One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them,filledup

with ages of memory and long, slow, steady thinking; but their
surface was sparkling with the present: like sun shimmering on
the outer leaves of a vast tree, or on the ripples of a very deep
lake. I don't know, but it felt as if something that grew in the
ground—asleep, you might say, or just feeling itself as some-
thing between root-tip and leaf-tip, between deep earth and sky
had suddenly waked up, and was considering you with the same
slow care that it had given to its own inside affairs for endless
years. (2.66-67)
Tolkien has a veritably religious reverence for the natural world.
He could name every flower and vegetable that grew in his garden,
and he could even distinguish among the kinds of grass. He also
had a loving regard for birds, whether the seemingly insignificant
sparrows, the messenger-thrush who appears in The Hobbit, or the
magnificent eagles who deliver Gandalf after his battle with the
Balrog, and who also rescue Sam and Frodo at the end of The Lord
of the Rings. But it was chiefly trees that Tolkien loved. For him,
the wanton destruction of forests was akin to the torture and
slaughter of animals. He repeatedly vowed to take the part of trees
against their enemies: he was an unapologetic defender of nature
before environmentalism had yet been made into a cause. Tolkien
perhaps speaks for himself when he has Treebeard confess that
"nobody cares for the woods as I care for them," and when this
same Ent also warns that "the withering of all woods may be draw-
ing near" (2.75-76).
It is not surprising to learn that the forces of evil despise the nat-
ural world no less than they scorn the Free Peoples. Ungoliant, the
first creature to be corrupted by Melkor, is the enemy of light.
Embodied as a hideous spider, she joined Melkor in devouring the
Two Trees of Valinor in an obscene vampiric act:
Then the Unlight of Ungoliant rose up even to the roots of the
Trees, and Melkor sprang upon the mound; and with his black
spear he smote each Tree to its core, wounded them deep, and their
sap poured forth as it were their blood, and was spilled upon the
ground. But Ungoliant sucked it up, and going then from Tree to
Tree she set her black beak to their wounds, till they were drained;
and the poison of Death that was in her went into their tissues and
withered them, root, branch, and leaf; and they died. (S, 76)
Tolkien loved trees not only because of their beauty and utility,
but also because they share the human rhythm, growing gradually
and outliving most other species. In a world maddened by haste and
obsessed with speed, Tolkien looked to trees as prime examples of
life that has not been made manic with hurry. Already in book 1 we
learn the lesson of patience and deliberation when the hobbits take
a long time just to arrive at Bree, which is a comparatively short dis-
tance from Hobbiton. Their journey to Rivendell takes even longer,
as it also proves to be immensely complex and difficult. In all three
volumes, the action usually occurs amidst confusion and bewilder-
ment, as the Company often remains uncertain about the events
occurring in the larger world that surrounds them. Yet they rarely
rush, for to do so is to be made even more confused and bewildered.
Good Magic and Evil Sorcery

Tolkien is thoroughly Christian in not looking to nature for Job's
final assurance that the world's harshness does not betoken any
divine malignity. Just as Job receives this pledge through the
appearance of Yahweh himself, so does Tolkien stress Iluvatar's
own self-identification through the commands he has given to the
valar and maiar, and supremely through the redemptive life of the
Company itself. Only in the work of those who are good is there
providential assurance that the world is morally ordered, and only
there lies a way beyond the despair that is likely to be prompted by
the hard realities of both the human and natural realms. For Tolkien,
malign magic is the product of a panicked despair. It offers a quick
and false fix for the complexities and confusions—above all, for the
slow and gradual movements—of the good creation.
Magic and divination were common practices in the ancient
world, and the Bible displays a good deal of both. King Saul con-
sults the Witch of Endor in order to bring up the spirit of the dead
Samuel (1 Samuel 28), even as Simon the Magician wants to learn
the secret power inherent in the apostolic laying on of hands (Acts
8). Yet Scripture is clearer still that God's people are meant to
eschew magic if it means the manipulation of God's own will and
power. Deuteronomy is especially direct:
When you come into the land which the LORD your God gives
you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of
those nations. There shall not be found among you any one who
burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who prac-
tices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a

charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For who-
ever does these things is an abomination to the LORD; and
because of these abominable practices the LORD your God is
driving them out before you. (18:9-12)
The New Testament is even stronger in its condemnation of sor-
cery. It is clearly allied with "the principalities and powers in the
heavenly places," with "the world rulers of this present darkness,"
with "spiritual hosts of wickedness" (Eph. 3:10; 6:12). Far from
putting such esoteric forces to divine use, Christians are instructed
to wrestle against them. Thus does Paul call the sorcerer Elymas a
"son of the devil" and an "enemy of all righteousness." The Apos-
tle blinds Elymas, in fact, for seeking to turn away a Roman pro-
consul from the Good News (Acts 13:10-11).
Tolkien agreed with C. S. Lewis that modern sorcery gets its real
impetus, albeit paradoxically, from modern science. Lewis argues
that in the Middle Ages—precisely because they were so thor-
oughly Christian—very little magic was actually practiced. Serious
magical endeavor began, Lewis observes in The Abolition of Man,
only with the serious scientific projects of the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries. Tolkien notes in a similar vein that, because magic
of this sinister kind seeks to alter the primary world, it differs dras-
tically from artistic magic. Gandalf is a wizard whose artistic
enchantments heighten our regard for the wonders and mysteries of
the natural order. In our own world, by contrast, magic is never an
art but always a technique for manipulation: "its desire is power in
this world, domination of things and wills" (MC, 143). It is also
noteworthy that the "hobbits have never, in fact, studied magic of
any kind, and their elusiveness is due solely to a professional skill
that heredity and practice, and a close friendship with the earth,
have rendered inimitable by bigger and clumsier races" (1.10).
Abetted by magic that is bent on power, modern science has
come gradually to win our allegiance, whether overtly or covertly.
Gradually it has replaced the chief aim of ancient wisdom, both
pagan and Christian, which was to conform human life to ultimate
reality by way of virtue and knowledge and self-control. As
Descartes famously said, the aim of modern science is to render us
"masters and possessors of nature." No wonder that Tolkien

regarded much of modern technology—precisely because it seeks
to put nature under its command, speeding up its deliberate
processes—as a disguised form of magic: the attempt to accom-
plish grand ends by instant means. Machines and magic both serve
the cause of what Tolkien called immediacy: "speed, reduction of
labour, and reduction also to a minimum (or vanishing point) of
the gap between the idea or desire and the result or effect" (L, 200).
The magic of the machine age is meant for those who are in a hurry,
who lack patience, who cannot wait. He thoroughly agreed with
Winston Churchill's claim, made in the midst of World War II, that
ours is "a dark age, [made] more sinister and perhaps more pro-
tracted by the lights of perverted science." Churchill also
described the then-new devices of radar and similar methods of
electronic spying as "wizard war."
Treebeard the Ent reports that Saruman, once he becomes
obsessed with power, acquires "a mind of metal and wheels; and
he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him
for the moment" (2.76). Saruman has made his fortress at Isengard
into a prison house of mechanical power. Like Sauron, he has cre-
ated weapons of horror, thus perverting the good skills he learned
from Aule. Isengard thus resembles sights that Tolkien surely saw
in his boyhood Birmingham. It is
a graveyard of unquiet dead. For the ground trembled. The
shafts ran down by many slopes and spiral stairs to caverns far
under; there Saruman had treasuries, store-houses, armouries,
smithies, and great furnaces. Iron wheels revolved there end-
lessly, and hammers thudded. At night plumes of vapour
steamed from the vents, lit from beneath with red light, or blue,
or venomous green. (2.160)
Sauron is a sorcerer precisely in this mechanical fashion: he uses
his craftsmanship for the sake of power over others. He fashions the
One Ring in order to put the other rings under his domination. As a
practitioner of the black arts, he is rightly called Necromancer
(1.263), just as Angmar, king of the Ringwraiths, is rightly called
Sorcerer: "because of his cunning he grew ever higher in the Lord's
[Sauron's] favour; and he learned great sorcery, and knew much of

the mind of Sauron; and he was more cruel than any ore" (3.164).
While Tolkien linked modern machines to both ancient and mod-
ern magic, it is important to discredit the common view that Tolkien
was a Luddite who damned and dismissed modem technology as
evil and godless. There is little doubt that he regarded pre-modem
existence as in many ways superior to our own, and that he
lamented our enslavement to highly specialized means of manu-
facture, since many of them are designed to hurry and even to
crunch time. But Tolkien was also careful to point out that the use
of a thing—whether for good or ill—determines its worth, not the
thing itself. The ancient adage—abusus non tollit usus (the abuse
of a thing does not take away its proper use)—is at least as old as
St. Augustine. To deny its truth is to indulge in an anti-modem mis-
anthropy that denies the inventive spirit implanted by God in all
free creatures—as if the Holy Spirit were absent from modernity.
Tolkien approvingly cites the Noldor elves as having the spirit
of modem '"science and technology,' as we should call it." Their
interest in ingenious craftsmanship, he adds, is akin to that of Chris-
tians engaged in scientific research resulting unhappily in malign
by-products. Tolkien cites poisonous gases and explosives as exam-
ples. Such scientists are not dealing with "necessarily evil" things,
Tolkien insists. Yet the sinister "nature and motives of the economic
masters who provide all the means" for such research dictate that
its products will almost certainly be put to evil purposes (L, 190).
For Tolkien, the means are altogether as important as the ends. Sci-
entific experiments and technological achievements must be good
in themselves, he insisted, and not good merely in the ends they
serve. Medicines that stop ravaging diseases could not be justified,
for example, unless they are produced by humane methods.
The Supreme Gift of Speech

Tolkien takes the Creation accounts in Genesis and the Prologue to
the Fourth Gospel with utmost seriousness. Genesis records God as
speaking the cosmos into being, and the fourth evangelist declares
God to be the Logos who stands at the beginning of things, even as

he declares Jesus Christ to be the Logos who has become flesh.
Christians are by definition Logocentrists: we believe that the incar-
nate Logos is the center of the cosmos. Because God himself is
understood fundamentally as the Word, Tolkien regards speech as
our most fundamental gift, the one thing that distinguishes us as
uniquely human creatures made in the image of God. When human
breath becomes articulate—when our species stops grunting and
starts speaking—we become drastically distinct from other beings.
The glory of plants and animals and mountains is to be simply and
inarticulately what they are. Human uniqueness derives, by con-
trast, from what we make—from our capacity to subcreate, to
rearrange the good things of the good creation so as to make them
even better—or, alas, much worse. And speech is the chief means
for all human creativity and destructivity.
Through language, Tolkien argues, we become capable of pur-
poses and designs, of objects and intentions, that are good not
only for ourselves but also for others—and ultimately for God.
Indeed, speech was the gift of Eru to elves and men and Ents. All
of us speaking creatures can use our word-and-thing-making fac-
ulties for evil as well as good. But we would be neither speakers
nor hearers nor makers at all were we not products of the Creator.
From the smallest act of choosing our clothes to the grandest sci-
entific hypothesis or the most splendid symphony or fresco, we
make because we have been made, as Tolkien declares in
"Mythopoeia":
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light

through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seeds of dragons—'twas our right
(used or misused). That right has not decayed:
we make still by the law in which we're made.
(MC, 144)
Though words are never adequate to the things they specify,

neither are they mere arbitrary vocables invented for our selfish
manipulation of people and things. Tolkien the Christian holds that
our logoi (words) are rooted in the Logos (the Word). Mythologies
are supreme examples of the ontological character of speech:
words are grounded in the world's own being. They disclose—
through characters and events and images—the fundamental order
of things, an order that we do not invent so much as discover. As
Tolkien says in his essay "On Faerie Stories," "The incarnate
mind, the tongue, and the tale are in our world coeval" (MC, 122).
They emerge simultaneously, so that man the speaker is already
man the storyteller.
Tolkien believed that he had not devised his magnificent myth-
ical world so much as he had found it—indeed, that it had been
revealed to him by God. Once when asked what a certain passage
in The Lord of the Rings meant, he replied: "I don't know; I'll try
to find out." "Always I had the sense," he declared, "of recording
what was already 'there,' somewhere: not of 'inventing'" (T, 92).
The tales arose in his mind, he confessed, "as 'given' things, and
as they came, separately, so too the links grew" (T, 92). Tolkien
thus came to regard his characters and their realm not as fictional
but as historical persons and places! Venice, he confessed, was like
"a dream of Old Gondor."
Tolkien's unparalleled mastery of ancient tongues convinced
him that words are rooted in reality because speech arises out of
experience. As C. S. Lewis observed of Tolkien, "He had been
inside language" (T, 134). Against the reductionist view that "lan-
guage is a disease of mythology," therefore, Tolkien argued that in
myth lies the real origin and continuing power of language. The
name for the Norse thunder-god Thor (from which we get our
"Thursday") probably came into being, for example, as some
ancient Norseman experienced three things at once: human rage in
the form of a bellowing, hot-tempered, ox-stout farmer; the rau-
cous noise of lightning and thunder; and the divine power to which
human life is always subject. Owen Barfield, the one real philoso-
pher among the Oxford Inklings, made a similar point about the
Latin spiritus and the Greek pneuma and the Hebrew ruach.
Unlike our one-dimensional word spirit, these three antique words

mean wind-breath-spirit simultaneously. For ancient Greeks and
Romans and Israelites to have uttered such words was for them to
have experienced—without any disjunction—the tremendous
power of natural force, the invisible sign of human life, as well the
nearness and might of divine reality.
The original metaphoric and mythological richness of ancient
languages, Tolkien argued, has been largely lost in modem
tongues, so that our own language is far thinner than that of our
forebears. He disdained the popular notion that poetry and myth
are primitive means of communication that need to be replaced by
the more precise abstractions of modem science. The myth of
Thor, according to this mistaken view, is a crude prescientific
attempt to explain the phenomenon that we know to be the result
of hot and cold air clashing. For Tolkien, this is to get things
exactly backward. The truth is that modem languages have degen-
erated rather than improved. In the ancient world, men and women
did not abstract ideas and concepts from their complex rootage in
the interwoven (though unequal) dimensions of existence: the nat-
ural, the human, the divine and, alas, the demonic.
It is precisely when words are uprooted from their concrete ori-
gins and converted into empty abstractions that they can be put to
wicked purposes. We need not look only to modern political
rhetoric as proof of this danger; Saruman illustrates it all too well.
Partly because he knows that he has Gandalf's respect, Saruman
urges his fellow wizard to join with him in an alliance with
Sauron. Together they would use the power of the Ring to accom-
plish good rather than ill. Saruman argues for the use of evil
means to accomplish noble ends by appealing eloquently to high
ideals.
We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts,
deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high
and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things
that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather
than helped by our weak or idle friends [i.e., hobbits and men].
There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our
designs, only in our means. (1.272-73)
Saruman's moral duplicity is not the only evil here condemned.

Tolkien also reveals that brilliant rhetoric can disguise foul pur-
poses. When Saruman speaks from his tower called Orthanc
("Cunning Mind"), he addresses the Company with a voice that is
"low and melodious, its very sound an enchantment.... [A]ll that
it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire woke in them by
swift agreement to seem wise themselves. When others spoke
they seemed harsh and uncouth by contrast" (2.183). Saruman
employs slick words to prettify his ugly argument. But just as
Gandalf had earlier broken the enchantment of Saruman's speech
by discerning its cruel logic, so does Gimli detect what is false in
this later example of Saruman's honeyed language. Though
dwarves can often seem obtuse, this one acts like an early George
Orwell writing Animal Farm. Gimli penetrates Saruman's per-
verse attempt to overturn the meaning of ordinary terms by giv-
ing them pleasing expression: "The words of this wizard stand on
their heads. . . . In the language of Orthanc help means ruin, and
saving means slaying, that is plain" (2.184).
In order to guard against the use of high-sounding abstractions
for wicked ends, Tolkien employs harsh sounds to convey the
harsh character of evil. In The Hobbit, he refers to the demons who
seek to destroy Bilbo and the dwarves as "goblins." Yet this word
has come to connote mere mischievousness, as in Emerson's say-
ing that "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds."
Thus does Tolkien call them ores in The Lord of the Rings. The
hard sound of this Anglo-Saxon word for "demons" clearly con-
veys the evil character of these man-eating monsters. Melkor first
bred them from elves whom he had captured and tortured, having
then twisted and mutilated them into cruel parodies of themselves.
Tolkien also enriches our regard for words whose original
metaphoric meaning we have now lost. For example, Frodo's
sword is called Sting, not because it gives the small hurt of a nee-
dle's prick or an insect's bite, but because it has the power to pierce
enemies—as in its original Anglo-Saxon meaning. Tolkien readers
pondering St. Paul's plangent cry "O death, where is thy sting?" (1
Cor. 15:55) will now know that the Apostle is not hailing the risen
Christ's victory over a mere pinching injury, but the deathly agony
of a sword-thrust. So does Tolkien's word shirriff remind us that

our sheriff comes from shire, which in turn means county or
region. A sheriff is thus a person who helps keep order in a speci-
fied district. In the peaceful world of the Shire, the shirriffs merely
patrol the borders and capture stray animals. Even so, their name
reveals how rich mythological and linguistic allusions underlie
almost all of Tolkien's borrowed words. Most of them are drawn
from Norse and Teutonic and Celtic myths, but sauros is the Greek
word for "lizard." The Satanic figure called Sauron is thus linked
to a cold-blooded reptilian, as in the Garden of Eden.
Tolkien is no mere antiquarian in his love of ancient words. He is
also the inventor of new and morally resonant names. The Ring-
wraiths, for instance, are so called because they are men who have
yielded to Sauron for so long they have become entirely disembod-
ied creatures who nevertheless wear cloaks, ride horses, and wield
weapons. But their real terror lies in their malice, their Sauronic cru-
elty and spite. As Tom Shippey has shown, their name is linked to
the Anglo-Saxon writhan, which serves as the root of our modern
words wraith and wreath. The Ringwraiths are as ghostly as rising
smoke, but they are also creatures twisted with anger. For our word
wrath also derives from writhan. Thus does Tolkien teach an impor-
tant moral lesson through the etymological richness of Ringwraith:
the deadly sin of wrath knots us in a rage that withers our real sub-
stance. The larger point to be taken is that, for Tolkien, language is
never neutral. As our most precious gift, it is always loaded with
implication, always employed for either good or ill.
It is especially noteworthy that various members of the Com-
pany, especially the hobbits, repeatedly have recourse to poetry
and song. Speech at its fullest stretch is found in rhyme and meter,
in alliteration and assonance and consonance, as well as in many
other poetic devices. When sung, poetry takes on even greater
import, as it lifts words into the higher dimension of shared cele-
bration or else plunges them into the depths of communal lament.
This is not to say that poetry is an unalloyed good. Sauron's poem,
like the incantation of the Barrow-wights, is an enchantment in the
literal sense: its drumbeat cadences and repetitions cast a sinister
spell over its hearers:
Ash nazg durbatuliik, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg

thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the Darkness bind them.
(1.267)
Most often the hobbits sing for joy rather than consolation, for in
their singing they break into a transcendent realm beyond their own
small world. Aragorn's songs also tell of elves, and thus serve to
give the Quest its proper setting. Nearly all of the songs in The Lord
of the Rings remind readers and characters alike that, evil though
Sauron surely is, and grave though the struggle against his forces
will surely remain, the Quest belongs to a much larger and older
drama than their own immediate failure or success might indicate.
That the words of Tolkien's poems and songs are simple and the
rhymes predictable counts nothing against them, for they are not
intended as timeless art but as bracing verse. The modern disdain
for conventional poetic forms has been bought at a terrible price,
in Tolkien's estimate. It means that most people no longer have
poems rattling around in their heads, either to cheer or to comfort.
Ours is a prosaic world in more ways than one. The hobbits' best
songs, by contrast, enable them to embrace both bright freedom
and dark fate, as in Merry and Pippin's modification of the dwarf
song that had set Bilbo on his original adventure:
Farewell we call to hearth and hall!

Though wind may blow and rain may fall,
We must away ere break of day
Far over wood and mountain tall.
To Rivendell, where Elves yet dwell

In glades beneath the misty fell,
Through moor and waste we ride in haste,
And whither then we cannot tell.
With foes ahead, behind us dread,
Beneath the sky shall be our bed,
Until at last our toil be passed,
Our journey done, our errand sped.
We must away! We must away!

We ride before the break of day!
(1.116)
The Redeeming Hierarchy of Iluvatar's Universe
Tolkien envisions Iliivatar as making the universe into a vast song,

a powerful symphony, "a Great Music." Like all complex cre-
ations, Tolkien's fantasy world is a realm in which each part must
be subordinated to the whole, the lesser to the greater. The idea of
hierarchy is much out of fashion in our egalitarian time because
there seems to be something inherently unjust about declaring cer-
tain things to be better than others by their very nature. Yet Tolkien
believes that our loss of hierarchy signals a larger moral and reli-
gious loss as well: we are deprived of the means for rightly order-
ing our lives. Together with St. Augustine and the whole Christian
tradition, Tolkien holds that the essential task of all people is to set
their loves in order: to love the triune God first and last, and to love
all other things in right relation to him. Tolkien provides a hierar-
chically structured world so as to aid us in this task. Each order of
being has its own unique use and indispensable place, so that noth-
ing is degraded in belonging to a lower rather than a higher order.
On the contrary, everything is thereby exalted in serving precisely
the purpose for which it was made. In no way is anyone or any-
thing debased by the fact that others serve higher functions, nor is
there any condescension toward others who have lesser tasks.
The lowest of things are the inert minerals of the earth, and yet
even they contain precious stones that can be hewn and polished
into things of great beauty—just as they can also become objects
of an enslaving lust. Above them are the various plants, many of
them essential to healing. Trees, as we have seen, are the most
magnificent botanical species, and their caretakers the Ents are
among Tolkien's most original creations. Higher still are the many
kinds of animals, not only because they are mobile but also
because many of them possess the consciousness that makes them
real companions. Horses are perhaps the most splendid of
Tolkien's animate creatures, and they remain central to Tolkien's
world—whether in Gandalf's swift Shadowfax or Sam's humble

pony Bill.
The dwarves are among the least savory of the Free Peoples,
perhaps because they were created by the vala Aule in his desire to
hasten the work of Iluvatar. Aule impatiently wanted to behold the
men and elves whom Iluvatar himself would create. Perhaps
because their original existence was not willed by Iluvatar, the
dwarves remain rather possessive, isolated, non-cooperative, and
wrathful creatures dedicated to delving the earth. Yet because Aule
created them in affirmation rather than rejection of Iluvatar's own
creativity, Iluvatar later confirmed the worth of dwarves. Repeat-
edly in The Lord of the Rings, we encounter those who have sinned
by excessive zeal—rather than in overt rejection of the good. The
products of such zealous sin are almost always forgiven and turned
to good purposes. The dwarves, for example, excel as miners and
workers of metal and stone. Their fierce indomitability in battle
also frees them from subjection to Sauron. They are also to be hon-
ored for having created magnificent underground civilizations.
At the center of Tolkien's hierarchy stand the two fully human
creatures: men and hobbits. While the hobbits are small-statured,
they clearly belong to our own species. As the younger children
of Iluvatar, men are not only morally but also physically and cul-
turally diverse. In The Lord of the Rings, we encounter three
groups among the Men of Gondor: the Dunedain or Men of the
West, the Men of the Twilight such as the Rohirrim, and the Men
of Darkness or Wild Men who have a lesser stature and nature.
Both hobbits and men are subject to aging and illness, they are
ignorant of the future, and they are not always able to comprehend
the minds of other races. Yet the Third Age marks the beginning
of their rise to dominance and, because of their capacity for free
obedience to Iluvatar, they may come to dwell with him in the
End. As we shall discover, the Age of Men shall excel even that
of elves and wizards, because in one of them Iluvatar shall assume
human form.
Frodo and Sam's moral development reveals that each order of
being provides extraordinary room for either growth or deteriora-
tion. Though he is the noblest of hobbits, Frodo becomes far better
than he was at the beginning of the Quest. The bumbling peasant

Sam rises, in turn, from the virtual bottom of the social hierarchy
to become the hero of the entire book and the eventual mayor of
Hobbiton. Gollum demonstrates, alas, how hobbit life can be
grotesquely degraded by evil. So is Aragorn the best of men,
though he too experiences considerable moral growth. On the
other hand, the Ringwraiths—once bearers of the nine rings made
for men—have degenerated into horrible parodies of humanity. In
no case are any creatures petrified within their original condition,
for they have all either ascended or descended according to their
good or evil use of freedom, and in right or wrong relation to Ilu-
vatar's redeeming purpose.
Above men stand the elves, the firstborn children of Iluvatar.
They seem to represent the eternal and supernatural element in
human life. As we have noticed, they do not naturally die, though
they can be slain, even as they can die of grief. They are the fairest
of Iluvatar's creatures and the most akin to him in spirit. As lovers
of all natural things, especially stars and waters, they have had a
tense relation with the earth-delving dwarves. Tall and slender, the
elves have a keen sense of hearing and sight, and they have a
remarkable talent for communication. In fact, they have given lan-
guage to the other speaking species. Elves are so resilient that they
need little or no sleep, but rest their minds by beholding beautiful
things, especially the stars. The elves are by nature good, though
they can be seduced by evil. They can also marry outside their
race—as with Luthien and Beren, Arwen and Aragorn. Luthien
and Arwen surrender their immortality in order that they may be
united in death with their mortal spouses.
Tolkien gave an exceedingly unfortunate name to the new mor-
tality taken on by these self-sacrificing elves: he called it reincar-
nation (L, 189). Yet the elven-maiden Arwen is not reincarnated in
Hindu fashion. She does not begin a completely new life, one
utterly unlike her former existence, because of any meritorious or
reprehensible acts she has done in some previous life. Instead,
Tolkien offers a powerful imaginative analogy between the immor-
tal Arwen's decision to become a mortal woman and the Son of
God's refusal to regard his equality with the Father as a thing to be
grasped. Just as Christ empties himself of his divine eternality in

order to assume the form of a mortal servant and to become obedi-
ent unto death, even crucifixion, so in her infinitely smaller way
does Arwen give up her undying life to perish alongside her
beloved Aragorn. Elves who so surrender their immortality in order
to be joined in death with their beloved serve as a distant echo of
Christ's own incarnation as it is described in the early Christian
hymn recorded in Philippians 2. Yet these mortality-assuming elves
are utterly unlike Christ because they do not die in atonement for
anyone's sins. Nor are they resurrected. In the end, most of the
faithful elves will be joined with the valar in Valinor.
Higher still than the elves are the maiar. Like all other beings
made by Iluvatar, they are not creatures of a fixed fate. Gandalf and
Saruman, as well as Sauron and the Balrog, are maiar who demon-
strate this principle. While the Balrog and Sauron have sunk to
sheer evil, Saruman and Gandalf move in opposite directions on
the scale of goodness. Saruman the White begins as a righteous
wizard for whom Gandalf has the utmost regard. Yet Saruman is
gradually corrupted by his Faustian desire for unbridled knowl-
edge, especially Ring lore that would teach him the ways of
Sauron. From having been a high wizard, therefore, he ends as a
disgusting sorcerer, and in so doing he loses all distinctness of
color. Evil literally defaces those who practice it.
Saruman's final insignificance is demonstrated by his murder at
the hands of his despicable lieutenant Wormtongue, who was orig-
inally a splendid human corrupted by Saruman. Gandalf the Grey,
by contrast, is so ennobled by his many counsels of wisdom and his
many deeds of courage that he emerges as Gandalf the White, vir-
tually beatified. Above the maiar are ranked the valar, and they too
have the potential to act either in accord with Iluvatar's will or else
against it. Manwe and his spouse Varda are filled with such com-
passion and mercy that they have become the dearest of valar to Ilu-
vatar, while Melkor in his rejection of the divine music has sunk
into the clanging abyss of evil. At the top of the hierarchy, Iluvatar
himself reigns—not in omnipotent domination of the cosmos, but
in majestic honor and splendor and love for all that he has made.
The single figure who seems not to fit within Tolkien's cosmic
scheme is Tom Bombadil. On the one hand, he and his spouse

Goldberry resemble a wood-sprite (or dryad) and a water-
nymph—so fully do they belong to the natural world. Yet Bom-
badil calls himself the Eldest, saying that he was present before the
rivers and the trees. As a figure who is somehow prior to nature, he
will outlast all other things, until in the End he too perishes. On the
other hand, Tom and Goldberry bear a certain likeness to the
unfallen Adam and Eve, so innocent are they of all moral com-
plexity. They seem not so much to have resisted temptation as to
be immune from it. The Ring, for instance, has no effect on Bom-
badil. He does not disappear when wearing it, and he can still see
Frodo when the hobbit has it on his finger. And while Bombadil
rescues the hobbits from Old Man Willow, he acts not from a sense
of friendship or justice, so much as in desire to protect his territory.
Bombadil seems oblivious to all moral distinctions. He seems
to dwell joyfully in the world without any possibility of defecting
from his service to Iluvatar. Perhaps Tolkien wants his readers to
discern the presence of other such creatures who dwell delightfully
beyond good and evil. But while being an immensely interesting
figure who rescues the hobbits from the Barrow-wights as well as
Old Man Willow, Bombadil is morally and spiritually irrelevant to
the struggle that lies at the heart of the Quest. As Gandalf wisely
observes, Bombadil would be an utterly unfit keeper of the Ring:
he would either forget it or even throw it away. "Such things have
no hold on his mind" (1.279). Perhaps he is Tolkien's reminder
that, while the world's hierarchy is carefully calibrated for our ben-
efit, it contains anomalies that lie beyond our comprehension. Like
the emblem placed atop the tallest spire when a medieval cathedral
was finally finished, Bombadil may be Tolkien's own monkish gift
to Iluvatar—a creature not meant for our understanding but for the
enjoyment of God alone.
The Moral Challenge of Middle-earth History
The presence of an amoral and ahistorical creature such as Bom-

badil reveals, by his very exceptionality, that Tolkien's world is
intrinsically moral and historical. Though it is a magical realm that

Tolkien entirely invented, it is not a mythic "once upon a time"
story. Myths of this sort occur in a timeless realm in order to illus-
trate timeless truths. They can often be summarized in abstract
statements: "Appearances can be deceiving"; "Beware of strangers
offering gifts"; and so on. The order of such myths is usually cir-
cular, repetitive, and unchanging; reincarnation is often one of their
features. They have no necessary link with any particular events or
peoples, and in them the future is essentially identical to the past.
Everything goes around in a gigantic circle of virtual sameness.
Tolkien's mythical world, by contrast, is thoroughly historical.
No event is ever repeated, and every creature has unique impor-
tance. One era is always the moral consequence of another. In fact,
the historical continuity of Tolkien's successive ages resembles the
story of Israel and Christ and the church. Just as lowly Israel even-
tually became a mighty kingdom, so did the First and Second Ages
reveal the grand accomplishments of wizards and elves and
dwarves. The Third Age seems to entail a considerable decline. It
is an epoch rather like the waning Israelite world into which Jesus
was born, where the temple in Jerusalem would soon be destroyed.
Yet Christ's life and death and resurrection brought about a revo-
lutionary rekindling of hope, not only for Israel but for the Gentile
world as well. So does the Third Age mark the surprising union of
greater and lesser creatures—elves and dwarves—with hobbits
and men in order to accomplish the seemingly impossible: the
defeat of Sauron. The dawning of the Fourth Age of Men would
not seem to be bright with promise, but neither did the early years
of the church augur the spread of the Gospel to the whole world.
In many other ways does Middle-earth resemble human history,
and therein lies its credibility. "History often resembles 'Myth',"
Tolkien declares, "because they are both ultimately of the same
stuff (MC, 127).
It is often noted that our modern sense of history—whereby we
read events as the result of complex moral actions rather than
arbitrary cosmic forces—has been given to us by the historical faith
of Judaism and Christianity. To suggest the pertinence of this legacy
for his own mythical world, Tolkien makes the geography of
Middle-earth resemble northern Europe, with the Shire being some-

what analogous to England. It is a historical realm because, at least
within its mortal limits, its future is completely unknown. It depends
on the engagement of all the Free Peoples against Sauron and his
evil forces, but it also depends on the silent and providential work-
ings of the will of Iluvatar within the events of Middle-earth.
Repeatedly we are reminded that Bilbo did not merely find the
Ring, but that in a mysterious sense the Ring found him. For while
the Ring is being manipulated by Sauron, who is determined to
regain control of it, it is also subject to Iluvatar's far greater power.
"Behind [the Ring's abandonment of Gollum] there was some-
thing else at work," Gandalf explains to Frodo, "beyond any
design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that
Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which
case you also were meant to have it" (1.65). Because divine will is
slow-working, uncoercive, and mysterious, Frodo and the Com-
pany know little more than that Iluvatar's final victory will occur
in the Last Eucatastrophe. There the Dagor Dagorath—Middle-
earth's equivalent of the biblical Armageddon—will bring the
grand symphony of creation into a violent but final harmony
through the healing and remaking of Arda. In the meantime, all the
inhabitants of Arda dwell amid drastic uncertainty. Thus does Gan-
dalf declare at the Council of Elrond that the Company must
undertake the Quest for the sake of a good far greater than the ben-
efit of their own passing age: "We should seek a final end of this
menace, even if we do not hope to make one" (1.280).
Humanity's wondrous and terrible ignorance of the future gives
time its enduring ethical and religious importance. It means that
we are at once radically dependent upon everything that has come
before us, but also that we are radically responsible for everything
that comes after us. Sam Gamgee gradually discovers this deep
moral truth. Slowly he comes to discern that the long-lasting tales
deal with people who did not seek to find a more interesting life or
to make a place for themselves in history. The real heroes are peo-
ple who "just landed" in the tales that are told about them—ordi-
nary people who found themselves unexpectedly called upon to act
courageously and selflessly.
The Call to the Life of the Quest
Their stories are later remembered, Sam observes, because these

folks—usually against their own wishes—were embarked upon a
Quest, a mission whose outcome involved something immensely
larger and more important than their own happiness. In explaining
this matter to Frodo, Gandalf draws a fundamental distinction
between a quest and an adventure. An adventure, he says, is a
"there-and-back-again" affair. One undertakes an adventure as a
matter of one's own desire—often from boredom and a lust for
excitement. Once the treasure is found and the adventure is over,
one returns essentially unchanged by the experience. An escapist
culture lives for adventures. A Quest, by contrast, is never a mat-
ter of one's own desire but rather of one's calling. Over and again,
Frodo asks why he has been chosen for his dreadful task. His sum-
mons is not to find a treasure but to lose one—to bear the Ring back
to the Cracks of Doom and there to cast it into the melting fires
whence Sauron first forged it.
Frodo and his friends have no guarantee, not even the likeli-
hood, that their Quest will succeed. They will be moving ever more
certainly toward danger, never away from it toward any kind of
permanent safety. Bilbo has composed a walking song that gives
them courage and determination. Frodo's early quotation of his
mentor's song reveals the younger hobbit's burgeoning wisdom:
The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if lean,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
(1.82-83)
In an earlier version of his song, Bilbo had used the word

"eager" rather than "weary," but age and experience have shown
him that life drains even as it fulfills. Yet Bilbo's exhaustion in no
way diminishes his conviction that everyone has an "errand"—a

mission and purpose—and that everyone undertakes a journey
every day of one's life. We are all bound on the same Road toward
death—indeed, beyond death. We are immersed in the river of
time—the "ever-rolling stream" which, in Isaac Watts's splendid
rendering of the Ninetieth Psalm, "bears all its sons away." To
deny the constant nearness of death is, for Tolkien, the supreme
folly. About the basic transience of life, as in so much else, he is in
thorough accord with Scripture: "Come now, you who say, 'Today
or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year
there and trade and get gain'; whereas you do not know about
tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a
little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord
wills, we shall live and do this or that'" (Jas. 4:13-15).
The Company's quest to destroy the Ring—having no guaran-
tee of success but rather the immense likelihood of failure—is not
unlike the journey of life. The path is full of such perils that our
destiny can never be predicted in advance. Legolas the elf declares
this dark truth: "Few can foresee whither their road will lead them,
till they come to its end" (2.95). The question—and thus the
Quest—concerns how we shall travel the road and whether we
shall complete our errand. Like Frodo, we are called not so much
to find a treasure as to lose one. There is a huge difference, of
course. While the Ring is evil and must be destroyed, our lives are
good and must be preserved. Yet they are not to be preserved at all
costs. Rather we are called eventually to surrender the bounty
given to us at our birth. The struggle for the good against the evil
requires nothing less than everything—the giving up of our lives—
whether sooner or later, whether bitterly or graciously, whether by
happenstance or intention.
Tolkien's work is imbued with a mystical sense of life as a jour-
ney or quest that carries us beyond the walls of the world. To get
out of bed, to answer the phone, to respond to a knock at the door,
to open a letter—such everyday deeds are freighted, willy-nilly,
with eternal consequence. From the greatest to the smallest acts of
either courage or cowardice, we travel irresistibly on the path
toward ultimate joy or final ruin. According to Bilbo, we can "keep
our feet"—i.e., we can avoid being swept away to the permanent

death that comes from having failed our mission—only so long as
we have a sure sense of where we are supposed to be going and
how we may rightly arrive there.
[Bilbo] used often to say there was only one Road; that it was
like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every
path was its tributary. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going
out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and
if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you
might be swept off to." (1.83)
The assorted powers of evil are dedicated to sweeping all trav-
elers off the one Road—not only into by-ways and ditches, but also
into the pit of death. To know how to fight the good fight and to
stay the course requires a knowledge of the Calamity that has
marred the good creation, turning a symphony into a cacophony.
Chapter Two
The Calamity of Evil:

The Marring of the Divine Harmony
1 olkien discloses both the complexity and subtlety of evil, never

underestimating what is sinister about it. Yet he does not retell the
biblical story of the Fall—not only because Milton and others
have done it so well, but in order to ring fresh changes on the
ancient problem of temptation and calamity. Tolkien has a pro-
foundly Christian understanding of the nature of evil, even as he
has a contemporary grasp on the terror it presents to our time. The
aim of this chapter is to lay out the subtle logic of evil as it is
revealed in The Lord of the Rings by looking at four of its chief
manifestations: (1) how evil originates in the impatient desire for
autonomy and independence; (2) how Sauron masters the elvish
craft of metal work in order to fashion the Ring of total domina-
tion; (3) how this Ruling Ring binds Sauron's creatures by the ties
of hatred and fear, causing them to destroy and consume each
other, but only after they have first done enormous damage to the
good; and also (4) how Sauron is immensely successful in seduc-
ing the Free Peoples with the three chief powers of the ring:
longevity, invisibility, and coercion.
The Revolt of the Solitary Melkor
In The Silmarillion, we learn that six of the valar were created by

Iluvatar in pairs, and that they work together as virtual spouses. Yet
three of the valar are single. Nienna, the sister of Manwe, is the
48
The Calamity of Evil 49
very soul of suffering, one whose compassionate tears bring heal-

ing. Rather than encouraging those who suffer to languish in an
endless grief, she calls them to spiritual endurance. Far from rel-
ishing her solitude, she dwells in intimate relationship with crea-
tures other than herself. Ulmo is lord of waters and one of the chief
architects in the making of Arda (the cosmos). He has learned more
of Iluvatar's music than any of the other valar, and he has also
instructed the elves in the arts of harmony, even as he advises them
through good dreams and the music of waters. Perhaps because he
has no fixed dwelling place, Ulmo has no spouse. But his inspira-
tional creativity gives him a constant concourse with others.
Melkor ("He who arises in Might") exceeds all the other valar in
power and knowledge. He is gifted by Iluvatar with special talents
in substances and crafts, but he uses these gifts to remain a soli-
taire subverter of Iluvatar's purposes.
Everywhere in Tolkien, authentic existence is always commu-
nal—whether in dwarves or elves, wizards or hobbits or men, but
also among the valar and maiar, and even for Iluvatar himself.
Here again Tolkien's vision is unabashedly biblical. Just as Adam
could not be truly himself without Eve, so are all of the Hebrew
patriarchs and matriarchs called by God—not to live in solitary
faithfulness, but to serve as the progenitors of his people Israel. In
Christian tradition, faithfulness always requires "two or more."
Solitary fidelity is a contradiction in terms. Faithfulness is always
communal. Jesus goes alone into the wilderness—just as Christian
hermits still dwell in solitude—only for the sake of his community
and Kingdom. Tolkien stands in full accord with this fundamental
insistence that we become true persons only in engagement and
community with other persons. He also discerns that pride, the
deadliest of the cardinal sins, is usually a denial of our dependence
on others. It is an attempt at pseudo-lordship—as if God himself
were not a triune community of persons, as if he were not the God
who refuses to be God without his people.
Melkor, by contrast, asks Friedrich Nietzsche's question: "If
there were God, who could bear not to be God?" Yet he dared not
be as honest as Nietzsche. Melkor was a deceiver about his god-
like ambitions. He did not want it to be known that he despised
everything he could not bring under his control—perhaps the sea

most of all. Unlike the other two solitary valar who have good rea-
son for remaining alone, Melkor seemed to have relished his iso-
lation, until finally it became the excuse for his rebellion. He
deprived himself of all communal reliance, even upon Iluvatar.
Thus did he grow impatient with the All-Father, refusing the
proper call of sub-creation, wanting instead to create other beings
on his own. He began to weave his own music into Iliivatar's great
symphony of creation. The result was an immense dissonance—so
terrible, in fact, that the other valar were overwhelmed by
Melkor's cacophony, and in their despondency they stopped their
own song: "Then the discord of Melkor spread ever wider, and the
melodies which had been heard before foundered in a sea of tur-
bulent sound" (S, 16).
Melkor's brute noise was but the first of his many disturbances
of Iliivatar's good creation. Like Satan in Milton's epic, Melkor
became jealous of the two unique races whom Iluvatar made not
through the valar, but through his own agency—namely, elves and
men. Pretending to admire these new creatures—at first fooling
even himself—Melkor set out to bring them under his own mas-
tery so that, like Iluvatar, he might be called Lord. Little does he
understand that true lordship never coerces but always allures and
invites. Melkor was also jealous that Iluvatar alone possesses the
Flame Imperishable, the Light of creative action. Yet unlike the
generous All-Father, who shares this creative power, Melkor
grasped it greedily unto himself:
From splendour he fell through arrogance to contempt for all

things save himself, a spirit wasteful and pitiless. Understanding
he turned to subtlety in perverting to his own will all that he
would use, until he became a liar without shame. He began with
the desire of Light, but when he could not possess it for himself
alone, he descended through fire and wrath into a great burning,
down into Darkness. And darkness he used most in his evil works
upon Arda, andfilledit with fear for all living things. (S, 31)
The echoes here of the biblical Tempter—the subtlest beast of

the field, the angel cast out of heaven, the father of lies, the one
thrown into outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and
gnashing of teeth—are unmistakable. Perhaps Melkor is most like
Satan in forging for himself a crown of iron and thus according to
himself a grandiose title, "King of the World" (S, 81). Yet Tolkien
is careful to define the limits of even this most monstrous creature.
Because Melkor rejects Iluvatar's goodness, his iniquity has no real
substance, no true right to exist, no proper being. Though frighten-
ingly actual, the demonic always remains shadowy and derivative
and in the deepest sense unreal. Tolkien has learned from St.
Augustine that evil is privatio boni, the absence of good.
One of Tolkien's most important teachings is that we are never
meant to take evil with the same seriousness that we accord to the
Good, lest we become perversely fascinated with things we
allegedly abominate. Such enthrallment would mark the ultimate
triumph of evil. Hence Elrond's solemn warning against the mis-
take made by Saruman: "It is perilous to study too deeply the arts
of the Enemy, for good or for ill" (1.278). We are not meant to stare
at the Abyss lest, as Nietzsche warned, it stare back at us. It is cru-
cial also to note that no Christian creed or confession declares,
Credo in diabolus. Christians do not credit true being to the devil
but to the triune God alone. We confess, instead, Christ's descent
into Hell, while admitting that it too is a created realm—not an
eternal reality. Tolkien wisely describes evil, therefore, as the
Shadow: it is something secondary and derivative from the Light,
not something primary and positive.
Tolkien demonstrates, exactly to the contrary, that sin is always
a twisting and distortion and perversion of the Good. "Marring" is
his favorite metaphor for the work of evil. It cannot destroy or
undo goodness, but it can certainly tarnish and blight it. Since evil
lives always as a parasite off the Good, the demonic Melkor was
unable to produce any original or free creatures. He could manu-
facture only parodies and counterfeits. In addition to the carnivo-
rous trolls that he bred in scorn for Ents, he has made the hideous
ores in mockery of elves. "The Shadow that bred [the ores] can
only mock," Frodo observes deep within the interior of Mordor, "it
cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don't think it gave
life to the ores, it only ruined them and twisted them" (3.190).
The ores serve both Melkor and Sauron in fear and hatred, not
in loyalty—since evil must always coerce and enslave, never
allowing free discipleship. Their works, even when crafty, are
invariably malicious and destructive, as we learn in The Hobbit:
Now [ores] are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no

beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. They can tun-
nel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves, when
they take the trouble, though they are usually untidy and dirty.
Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also
instruments of torture, they make very well.... It is not unlikely
that they invented some of the machines that have since trou-
bled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large
numbers of people at once. (H, 60)
Modern nuclear weapons are the obvious products of Melkor's

latter-day disciples, as Tolkien brings home the demonic sources
of our own culture of death. But ours is a far more vicious age than
anything Middle-earth ever knew. Sauron's ores decapitate their
victims and throw the heads back over the fortress wall at Gondor,
and we learn of the awful evils they inflicted on Gollum. Even so,
Tolkien confessed that, if he had been writing an allegory of the
modern world, he would have been compelled to make the hellish
consequences of war much worse than they are in The Lord of the
Rings: "The Ring would have been seized and used against
Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and
Barud-dur [Sauron's fortress] would not have been destroyed but
occupied" (1.7).
Yet Tolkien's epic does contain hints of the horrors perpetrated
during World War II. Treebeard the Ent suggests that the terrible
Uruk-hai are not merely an evil species of men made by Sauron,
but rather the malevolent result of Sauron's cross-breeding of ores
and men. While these vicious warriors are frightful in their own
right, wreaking awful mayhem at the Battle of Helm's Deep, the
Uruk-hai also serve as fearful reminders that, about the same time
Tolkien was writing his book, Nazi scientists were treating human
life as a similarly malleable thing. They indulged in genetic mat-
ings that were prompted by a Sauronic desire to create a pure
Nordic race of supermen. The technology required for cloning

these Blond Beasts was not available then as it is now, for surely
it would have been used. Whenever we deny the fundamental dig-
nity of human life as the unique and unalterable gift of God,
Tolkien suggests, then such cruel and abominable experiments
will surely result.
The wicked machinations of Melkor and Sauron make them
enemies not only of the Free Peoples, but also of the faithful valar,
who were forced to capture the greedy and vengeful Melkor. After
a tumultuous struggle, they imprisoned him for three ages in the
Halls of Mandos. Yet Melkor feigned repentance, chiefly through
his silken language, and thus persuaded the compassionate
Manwe to pardon and unchain him. Tolkien is candid about the
guilelessness of the innocent before the deceptions of the wicked.
Goodness, he suggests, is frightfully vulnerable to fraud: "Manwe
was free from evil and could not comprehend it" (S, 65). Yet
Tolkien also rejects the modern Faustian idea that knowledge and
experience of evil are necessary for true virtue to flower. For
Tolkien, evil will eventually reveal its sinister nature even to the
ingenuous. The chicanery of Melkor was soon made evident to the
faithful valar, as they had to subdue him once again. This time,
however, he was cast permanently into the Void. There he will
dwell until the End, when he will return to lead the forces of evil
in the Dagor Dagorath, the Final Battle in which good will tri-
umph.
The vile legacy of Melkor, alas, lives on. One of the main elven
races, the Noldor, fell prey to his temptations. Of all the elves, the
Noldor were most avid for learning and languages, for drawing
and carving and the working of metal. Tolkien repeatedly demon-
strates that evil often springs from the best of things rather than
worst. Corruptio optima pessima (the corruption of the best is the
worst) is an ancient maxim whose truth is also biblical: Peter the
chief of the disciples is also the worst denier of his Lord. Thus did
the Noldor elves' pride in their craftsmanship—especially in
Feanor's making of the Silmarils, the three magical jewels that
possess ever-radiant light—lead them to become self-interested
and ungrateful.
When one of the valar, Yavanna, asked Feanor for the Silmarils
in order to regrow the Two Trees destroyed by Ungoliant, he
refused her. This act was not prompted by Melkor but by Feanor's
own selfishness—the perennial source of all evil. Yet it made
Feanor susceptible to Melkor's tempting claim that Iluvatar had
unfairly restricted the elves' creative freedom. Many of the Noldor
elves thus refused Iluvatar's command to remain in Valinor, there
to reside in the earthly paradise created for them and the valar.
They elected, instead, to go their own way. After Melkor stole the
Silmarils to place them in his iron crown, Feanor gave him a more
sinister and appropriate name: the Morgoth ("the Dark Enemy").
Other elves swore a proud oath of fealty to Feanor and so joined
his pursuit of the fleeing Morgoth, as their path took them ever far-
ther away from Valinor. For their refusal faithfully to occupy their
proper place in Iluvatar's good creation, these rebel Noldor were
exiled to Middle-earth—though the penitent ones could return
"diminished" to the Undying Lands.
Evil as Self-Devouring
Surely the worst legacy left by Morgoth was his seduction of var-
ious maiar into his cause. We are not told how many of them joined
his revolt against Iluvatar, but they include "the demons of terror"
called the Balrogs. The most sinister of these recruits, however, is
the maia called Sauron ("Abominable"). This evil one has risen
"like a shadow of Morgoth and a ghost of his malice, and walked
behind him on the same ruinous path down into the Void" (S, 32).
Sauron has fought many battles against the valar, and he has ruined
much of Iluvatar's good creation. Yet he has also been defeated by
the maia named Eonwe, the herald and standard-bearer for
Manwe. Like Morgoth, Sauron agreed to repent of his evils, but his
all-consuming pride would not allow him to enact such humility.
Instead, he devised a new plan for subjecting the Free Peoples of
Middle-earth to his will. Using his own skill, combined with the
creativity of the Noldor elves whom he had inveigled, Sauron
forged the gemstone Rings of Power: nine for men and seven for
dwarves, though he did not make the three elven rings. All of these
rings, far from being evil, enabled their wearers to accomplish
immense good. Treacherously, however, Sauron also formed the
plain gold band of the Ruling Ring. Into it he placed much of his
own craft and power, including control over the nine rings
designed for men.
Sauron has not always been successful in his war against the
human species. Isildur, the elder son of Elendil, defeated him by
cutting the Ring off Sauron's finger. Instead of destroying it, how-
ever, Isildur became mesmerized by its powers and refused to sur-
render the Ring. But in the Battle of Gladden Fields, it slipped off
Isildur's finger and was lost in the River Anduin. There, many
years later, it was found by a hobbit named Deagol. Here Tolkien's
story takes on a clear resemblance to the account of Cain and Abel
in the book of Genesis. Like Abel, whose sacrifice proved accept-
able to God for no apparent reason, Deagol found the all-powerful
Ring without any seeming merit of his own. Yet Deagol's friend
Smeagol became intensely jealous of his comrade's good fortune.
Like Cain, he was unable to accept his companion's serendipity,
and thus murdered him to obtain the Ring. Rather than confessing
his deadly greed, Smeagol now claims that the Ring was a birth-
day present that is deservedly his. Here Tolkien again demon-
strates the seductive power of evil to overwhelm the truth, as those
who commit sins and crimes must always justify them. Just as
Adam blamed Eve for his own transgression, so does Smeagol
transform his evil choice into a supposedly benign necessity. Sel-
dom is sin committed for its own sake, Tolkien shows, but almost
always in the name of some alleged good.
More lethal still, at least in the moral sphere, is the power of the
Ring to destroy its owner's solidarity with others. Desperately
determined to keep the Ring for himself, Smeagol has been cut off
from all community, shunned by other hobbits, forced to live utterly
unto himself. His movements are so primitive that he is hardly rec-
ognizable as a hobbit. He retches at the odor of freshly growing
plants and herbs, and he despises lembas, the elven bread that pos-
sesses eucharistic airiness and thinness. Smeagol also refuses to eat
cooked meat—thus denying the very rudiment of civilized life, the
heated common meal. His possession of the Ring has so completely

altered his character, in fact, that he is no longer called Smeagol but
Gollum. His new name derives from his constant throat mutterings.
Since he obsessively uses the Ring to catch and eat raw fish, Gol-
lum has become entirely a creature of his appetite. His repetitive
swallowing noises constitute his very identity, as Tolkien reveals
that our personalities take on the quality of our acts. Outward
behavior manifests inward convictions, whether for good or ill.
"The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good,
and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the
abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45).
Because evil has no substance of its own but lives parasitically
off the good, Gollum forms a pseudo-community to replace the
genuine engagement with others that he has abandoned. His
throat-mumbling is the mark not only of his craving for fish but
also of his constant chatter with himself. In his long possession of
the Ring, Gollum has come to identify himself completely with it,
not only calling it "My Precious," but also addressing himself with
this same title. In fact, he always refers to himself with plural pro-
nouns, as if he were two rather than one. So divisive is the effect
of sin that it pits Gollum against himself. He becomes a literally
duplicitous creature: he is doubled and utterly self-referential. The
possessiveness engendered by the Ring also makes Gollum deper-
sonalize others. He speaks of Frodo not in communal terms as
"you" or "he" or "him," but as "it." Gollum first manifested this
demeaning habit when Bilbo found the Ring, and then bested its
former owner in the riddle contest. The furious Gollum asks Bilbo,
"What has it got in its pocketses?" And when Bilbo flees, Gollum
shouts this demeaning imprecation: "Thief, thief! Baggins! We
hates it forever!" (1.22). Though Gollum occasionally calls him
"master," Frodo is no longer a genuine "thou" to him—a fellow
hobbit whom, even if he cannot love, he must respect and honor.
Instead, he is a hated impersonal object.
Evil not only divides Gollum against himself, it also sets the dis-
ciples of Sauron against each other. The ores who are slaves to
Sauron are always quarreling among themselves. As these mon-
strous creatures snarl and snap at each other, they allow Merry and
Pippin to escape. So is the renegade wizard Saruman also unable

to enjoy true brotherhood with his chief lieutenant, Gnma (also
called Wormtongue). Their mutual hostility becomes evident
when they inadvertently surrender their palantir, the seeing stone
with which they have been able to communicate with Sauron.
Wormtongue flings it down in fury from the tower of Orthanc after
Saruman fails to seduce Gandalf into employing the Ring for
allegedly good ends. Nor is it altogether clear that Gnma was aim-
ing at the wizard, as Aragorn explains to Gandalf: "The aim was
poor, maybe, because he could not make up his mind which he
hated more, you or Saruman" (2.189). Here Tolkien states, in indi-
rect form, one of the deepest of Christian truths: all love that is not
ordered to the love of God turns into hatred. Because Wormtongue
has given his life in service to the corrupted wizard, he comes to
despise him, and in the end Gnma slits Saruman's throat.
The mutual suspicion inherent in all coalitions of evil is also
revealed when Pippin becomes so mesmerized by the palantir that
he tries to handle it, only to expose himself to the vision of Sauron.
The lord of all demons assumes that Pippin has been captured by
Saruman and is being held captive in Orthanc—when, in fact, the
palantir is now in possession of the Company. Yet even if Saru-
man confesses this calamity to Sauron, he is sure to be suspected
of lying, since there is no trust to be found among the untrusting,
as Gandalf declares:
So Saruman will come to the last pinch of the vice that he has
put his hand in. He has no captive to send.... Sauron will only
believe that he is withholding the captive and refusing to use the
Stone. It will not help Saruman to tell the truth. . . . So whether
he will or no, he will appear a rebel. Yet he rejected us, so as to
avoid that very thing! (2.205)
Though hardly cheering, the self-destructive character of evil is

one of the hopes that Tolkien holds out to the Company. To con-
sole Pippin about the treachery of Gollum, Gandalf reminds him
that "a traitor may betray himself and do good that he does not
intend" (3.89). This small assurance that evil often undoes itself
becomes especially important to the Fellowship, as it is gradually
broken into small sub-communities of only two members each.

They remain tiny societies of the virtuous, while their enemies—
no matter how numerous or powerful—can never become com-
munities of the vicious. King Theoden voices this odd confidence
in an apothegm: "oft evil will shall evil mar" (2.200). The life of
gangs and mobsters would appear to be a notable exception to this
rule, for these close-knit clans display immense loyalty to their
vision of the good—often surrendering their lives through acts of
terror committed against others. Yet even organized criminals are
known for their internecine life, as anyone who even whiffs of dis-
loyalty must be eliminated. Terrorist thugs are thus parodies of free
communities built on mutual trust: they are committed to sinister
aims rather than to purposes that are transcendently good.
No easy comfort can be found in the tendency of evil to devour
itself. Legolas seeks such solace when he discovers the bodies of
five slain ores: "Enemies of the Ores are likely to be our friends."
Aragorn corrects this naive assumption by reminding the elf that
"the enemy brought his own enemy with him" (2.24). Ores of one
kind are likely to attract another and even more vicious sort. So it
is with Sam and Frodo when they escape death in the tower of
Cirith Ungol because of ore strife. Frodo observes that such mutual
enmity must not be thought strange, since it "is the spirit of Mor-
dor." Yet Frodo warns that "you can't get much hope" from evil's
self-destructiveness (3.203). It also destroys enormous good in the
process of consuming itself. Only great wisdom and even greater
patience—whether within the Company or among ordinary mor-
tals—can refuse the tactics of Sauron himself. Resorting to evil in
order to destroy evil would require a grotesque modification of
Theoden's motto: oft "good" will shall "good" mar.
Sauron's Eye and Galadriel's Mirror:

The Temptation of False Vision
When Sauron is finally defeated, we are told, he will never again

be perceived in bodily form. His kind of evil will have to resort,
instead, to far more sinister spiritual devices. Perhaps Sauron has
learned a lesson from his decision to assume physical existence.

Though his exact shape is uncertain, his only visible aspect is a
gigantic lidless Eye. The eye is an organ of surfaces and appear-
ances. At best, it gives information and knowledge, but neither dis-
cernment nor wisdom. As a singular Eye, moreover, Sauron lacks
perspective and depth of vision. For all of his coercive might and
expansive vision, he comprehends very little. He is completely
lacking in sympathetic imagination—the power to enter other
minds and other lives. The world of evil is absurd in the literal
sense: surdus is Latin for "deaf." Sauron the Eye can hear nothing;
he can receive no commands from Iluvatar. In his all-seeing blind-
ness, he dwells in the realm of unreason, chaos, absurdity. Sauron's
metaphorical deafness also leaves him opaque to the selfless
motives of the Company. As a demon who, already possessing
immense power, seeks even greater might by means of his malice,
Sauron cannot fathom Frodo's desire deliberately to surrender the
Ring.
Tolkien does not naively honor the ear and hearing over the
eye and seeing. At the entrance to Gondor, there are seats of both
seeing and hearing. And when anyone wears the Ring, both hear-
ing and sight are hugely increased. Yet there is little doubt about
Tolkien's large regard for the heard word. His immense mastery
of ancient tongues, his desire to speak and hear them spoken
afresh, his love of the wisdom inherent in their speech—all these
put him in fundamental accord with the biblical tradition. Israel's
primary relation to God and the world is aural. Her very identity
has an interlocutory character, as God's people are always asked
to respond to his personal address. Whether God is speaking to
Abraham or Moses, David or Elijah or Daniel, his Word comes
as a call to obedience—usually to an action that turns the world
utterly upside down. It is not surprising that Israel is prohibited
from making images of Yahweh, for she is meant above all to
hear and listen to him. A visible God would be an undeniable
bully.
The high biblical regard for hearing is no happenstance. We can
shutter ourselves to what is seen, having eyelids to seal off images
and scenes that we do not want to behold. The ear, by contrast, has
no flap for silencing unwanted voices. Earlobes are meant to

increase hearing, not to prevent it. The ear is an organ for receiv-
ing declarations, and thus for either obeying or refusing com-
mands. Obedience comes from the Latin audire, "to listen." Over
and again Scripture declares that no one has seen God, while at the
same time insisting that many have heard the word of God. Jesus
himself offers an auditory more than a visual call: "He who has
ears to hear, let him hear" (Matt. 11:15)—not "Let anyone with
eyes, let him see." He also warns Thomas the Doubter against the
naive notion that seeing is believing: "Blessed are those who have
not seen and yet believe" (John 20:29). Paul offers similar injunc-
tions: "Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what
he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with
patience" (Rom. 8:24-25). Much of the Company's life consists in
a patient waiting. As they wait, they spend much of their time in
conversation—listening to stories of the past, receiving instruction
from wise ones, learning of the hugely complex history that has
intersected theirs.
Yet knowledge is no untrammeled good—unless the knower
learns its limits. This again is a biblical truth, as witnessed in the sec-
ond of the Genesis creation stories, where the lust for godlike knowl-
edge leads to the Fall. Sam and Frodo learn that knowledge can be
dangerous when they are allowed to peer into Galadriel's magical
mirror. It is a basin of water that reveals things that are, that were,
and that perhaps shall be—the present, the past, and the possible
future. Such extraordinary vision would appear to be an enormous
blessing. But to behold the future is especially dangerous. For if the
foreseen future proves to be grim, the beholder may well despair.
Sam and Frodo discover in fact that the prospect lying before them
is terrifying. When Sam peers into the mirror, he beholds Frodo
lying "dead" outside Shelob's Lair; he also foresees the later pillag-
ing of the Shire by Saruman and his henchmen. Even full-blown
knowledge of things present, especially of things evil, can be para-
lyzing, as when Frodo gets this chilling glimpse of Sauron himself:
Frodo looked into emptiness. In the black abyss there appeared

a single Eye that slowly grew, until it filled nearly all the Mir-
ror. So terrible was it that Frodo stood rooted, unable to cry out
or to withdraw his gaze. The Eye was rimmed withfire,but was
itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the
black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.
(1.379)
Evil is not something that truly exists, Tolkien profoundly dis-
cerns; it is nothing. Therein lies its real terror. If evil had a logi-
cal explanation, if it could be entirely explained as a perversion
or distortion of the good, then it could be combated with consid-
erable success. But because it is a devastating nothingness, a
nameless black void, it possesses an irrationality that does not
submit entirely to rational and moral control. As we have noticed,
evil always has the character of absurdity. Sauron's power baffles
understanding, prompts perplexity, and thus elicits despair.
Despair is, in fact, the constant temptation of the Company—to
give up, to quit, to surrender, to escape. When Sam and Frodo are
shown their bleak future, they are tempted to turn back—as
Tolkien suggests most people would do if they could look ahead
to their own end. Yet the hobbits do not. Instead, they heed Gal-
adriel's warning: "Remember that the Mirror shows many things,
and not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be, unless
those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent
them" (1.378).
The Appeal of Evil to Virtue Even More than to Vice
The evil of self-righteousness is the vexing problem of both the

Old and New Testaments. Repeatedly Israel is tempted to look
with scorn upon her pagan neighbors because she takes false pride
in being Yahweh's chosen and law-obedient people. Jesus casti-
gates the Pharisees for their virtues rather than their vices: they are
so fully compliant with divine law that they attribute their faith-
fulness to themselves rather than God. The problem is even more
acute among Christians, who are prone to think that their holiness
of life earns them honor before God. In his letters to the churches
in both Rome and Galatia, Paul repeatedly inveighs against those
who make their salvation in Christ an occasion for condemning

others: "Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are,
when you judge another; for in passing judgment upon him you
condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same
things" (Rom. 2:1). The Apostle makes a more positive appeal to
the Galatians, though the warning against self-righteousness is the
same: "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he
deceives himself (Gal. 6:2-3).
Tolkien understands the odd danger posed by virtue cut off from
the Good. Over and again, he demonstrates his fundamental con-
viction that evil preys upon our virtues far more than our vices. Our
very strengths and assets—whether intelligence or bravery, dili-
gence or loyalty or beauty, but especially righteousness—may dis-
pose us either to scorn those who lack such virtues, or else to
employ our gifts for our own selfish ends. Even Gandalf, the
noblest of all the characters in The Lord of the Rings, is subject to
such temptation. His outstanding virtue is pity, and he knows that
it makes him the least capable bearer of the Ring. On the one hand,
the Ring would give him the power to protect the weak so com-
pletely that they would never grow strong. On the other hand, the
Ring's absolute power would enable him to forgive all evil, thus
loosening the necessary tie between mercy and justice, pardon and
repentance. Hence his vehement and fearful response to Frodo's
offer of the Ring:
"No!" cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. "With that power I
should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring
would gain a power still greater and more deadly." His eyes
flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. "Do not tempt
me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet
the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and
the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not
take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it
would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it.
Great perils lie before me." (1.70-71)
The elven princess Galadriel suffers a similar temptation when
she is offered the Ring. She has done much to redeem the infidelity
of her Noldor people. She has also befriended the Company with
the elven cloaks, the waybread, and other gifts that enable their
very survival. The phial that she gives to Frodo, containing some
of the original light belonging to the Silmarils and the Two Trees,
helps him and Sam make their way in the infernal darkness of
Shelob's Lair. Even so, Galadriel's remarkable beauty and holiness
expose her to unique temptation. She could become deadly in her
beauty—a prospect that late modernity, with its virtual worship of
gorgeousness, can scarcely comprehend.
Tolkien expressed alarm, in fact, that our world finds "it diffi-
cult to conceive of evil and beauty together. The fear of the beau-
tiful fay [fairy] that ran through the elder ages almost eludes our
grasp. Even more alarming: goodness is itself bereft of its proper
beauty" (MC, 151). As in the biblical understanding of angels, so
are elves to be feared for their very goodness. Thus does the good
and beautiful Galadriel confess that she too has pondered the pos-
sibility of seizing the Ring. It would enable her to realize her long-
held desire to rule independently, a lust first aroused by the rebel
elf Feanor. Frodo's offer of the Ring thus represents for Galadriel
the supreme test:
I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask what you
offer. For many long years I had pondered what I might do,
should the Great Ring come into my hands, and behold! it was
brought within my grasp. The evil that was devised long ago
works on in many ways, whether Sauron himself stands or falls.
Would not that have been a noble deed to set to the credit of his
Ring, if I had taken it by force or fear from my guest? (1.381)
Like Faramir and Sam—but unlike Boromir and Saruman—
Galadriel is able to refuse the Ring's magnetic lure. Bilbo had also
used the Ring many times without permanent damage. Whence the
difference? Why can some resist the fatal temptation while others
yield to it? Boromir and Saruman both see themselves as leaders
and heroes; their loves are disordered by their own lust and ambi-
tion. The others, by contrast, possess something akin to what Jesus
calls purity of heart (Matt. 5:8). They have preserved their integrity
of soul and conscience. They regard themselves as servants rather
than lords. All four of them have properly ordered their loves to the
Good. Bilbo lives to write his books and poems, and to translate
works from the elvish for the benefit of hobbits. Sam serves his
master Frodo above all others. Faramir seeks to preserve Gondor in
readiness for the king's return. Galadriel wants only to protect
Lorien from the assaults of the evil one. Because their loves and
thus their lives are rightly ordered, the Ring does them little harm.
Since the Ring would seemingly aid Galadriel in this task—her
great strength being insufficient to defend Lorien against Sauron—
she has far greater potential for corruption than either hobbits or
men. And so she must repudiate it in the firmest terms. If she pos-
sessed its coercive power, she confesses, her loveliness would
become binding rather than inviting. Everyone would bow down
and adore her beauty, subjecting their wills to hers—thus putting
an end to all liberty and true beauty. Hence her stern response to
the offer of the Ring:
And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In
place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not
be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night!
Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain!
Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the
foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair! (1.381)
Just as Morgoth had refused Iluvatar's communal harmony in
favor of his own his solitary music, so would Galadriel have come
to preside over a crowd of slaves, not a community of souls. She
would have become a new and worse Sauron. Instead, she
becomes an ever more admirable servant of the Quest. Frodo has
spied the ring on her finger as Nenya, one of the three elven rings.
It has kept Lorien safe from Sauron's depredations. Even so, if
Frodo fails to destroy the Ruling Ring, Sauron will surely invade
and conquer the elven realm. What makes Galadriel such a
remarkable figure is her serenity amidst the coming defeat of her
realm and her people. Far from resigning herself to any sort of
fatalism, she desires only that the ought shall become the is:
"Yet if you [Frodo] succeed, then our power is diminished, and
Lothlorien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away.
We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell

and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten."
Frodo bent his head. "And what do you wish?" he said at last.
"That what should be shall be," she answered. "The love of
the Elves for their land and their works is deeper than the deeps
of the Sea, and their regret is undying and cannot ever wholly
be assuaged. Yet they will cast all away rather than submit to
Sauron: for they know him now." (1.380)
The power of evil to subvert virtue is not as readily resisted in
others as it is in Galadriel. Boromir, for example, is indeed a
valiant man, a warrior imbued with the virtue of courage. He fears
not death from Sauron's forces. On the contrary, he insists that the
Company employ the Ring against Sauron in order to defeat
him—unlike the deceiving Saruman, who urges them to use it in
alleged cooperation with Sauron. Thus does Boromir display a
bravado that is also blind. His sight is also dimmed by his despair
at knowing that Gondor does not have troops sufficient to defend
itself against an all-out assault from Mordor. The only hope seems
thus to lie in a valiant assault on Sauron himself by means of the
Ring.
Boromir fails to discern the indivisibility of the virtues. One
cannot be truly courageous without also being imbued with wis-
dom and justice and temperance and the other virtues. In Christian
tradition, moreover, the ancient virtue of courage—the willing-
ness to kill in defense of the good, even if it means one's own
death—becomes radically transformed into the new virtue of mar-
tyrdom: the willingness to make one's witness by being killed
rather than denying one's faith in order to remain alive. Such is the
witness the Fellowship will make at the battle of Pelennor Fields,
where they will maintain their faith in the Quest by facing Sauron's
armies like lambs led to the slaughter.
Boromir wants to die, if he must, a heroic death above all else.
He is unable to discern that his great valor would be corrupted by
his possession of the Ring. Even if he were to defeat Sauron by
using the Ring in all-out direct combat, Boromir would then
become (as both Galadriel and Gandalf have warned) a new and
worse Lord of Darkness. Blind to such ironies, Boromir tries to
seize the Ring from Frodo. The hobbit, in turn, is forced to put on
the Ring in order to escape one of his own companions. So sinis-
ter is the power of evil to corrupt virtue that the Fellowship is bro-
ken from within rather than without, by a friend rather than a
foe—not by Saruman or the Ringwraiths, but by their own com-
panion Boromir, who acts in the name of heroic bravery:
True-hearted Men, they will not be corrupted [by the Ring]. We
of Minas Tirith have been staunch through long years of trial.
We do not desire the power of wizard-lords, only strength to
defend ourselves, strength in a just cause. And behold! in our
need chance brings to light the Ring of Power. It is a gift, I say;
a gift to the foes of Mordor. It is mad not to use it, to use the
power of the Enemy against him. The fearless, the ruthless,
these alone will achieve victory. What could not a warrior do in
this hour, a great leader? What could not Aragorn do? Or if he
refuses, why not Boromir? The Ring would give me power of
Command. How I would drive the hosts of Mordor, and all men
would flock to my banner! (1.414)
The logic of Boromir's argument reveals that his courage is
already corrupted. He begins by wanting valiantly to defeat
Sauron, then he hails not the heroic warrior so much as the merci-
less killer, but only to promote himself as the rightful wielder of
the Ring, and finally to acclaim the glory that would accrue to him
alone—as his speech ends in a sputter of personal references.
The Lure of Longevity and the Longing for Invisibility
One of the chief allurements of the Ring is that it gives its bearer
ongoing life. Gollum has borne it the longest of any mortal crea-
ture in Middle-earth, and as a result his existence has been tremen-
dously prolonged: he is very old. Yet with his increase in quantity
of years, Gollum has received no increase in quality of life. On the
contrary, he has been nearly consumed by the Ring. He is emaci-
ated both,physically and spiritually because his imagination has
been turned entirely upon himself in a self-consuming satisfaction
of his own desires. Yet Gandalf's description of him reveals that,
for all that is sinister in this twisted creature, Gollum is more

pathetic than despicable. Evil punishes itself, for its disordered
love turns into secret hatred of the very thing it idolizes, as Gan-
dalf explains:
All the "great secrets" under the mountains had turned out [for
Gollum] to be just empty night: there was nothing more to find
out, nothing worth doing, only nasty furtive eating and resent-
ful remembering. He was altogether wretched. He hated the
dark, and he hated light more: he hated everything, and the Ring
most of all. . . . He hated it and loved it, as he hated and loved
himself. (1.64)
For Tolkien, the modern obsession with quantity rather than
quality of life is the mark of our unbelief. To be obsessed with pro-
longing our existence well beyond the bounds of our allotted bib-
lical years is to worship life rather than the God of life. Someone
has said that, if asked about the chief purpose of human existence,
many denizens of the modern West would reply, if they could
muster the candor: "It is to stay alive, not to die, and the purpose
of staying alive is to have a good time." Our only commonality is
the fear of death. Hence the burgeoning power of the health and
amusement industries as, virtually around the clock, most citizens
of the so-called "developed" countries are either being entertained
or receiving one kind of therapy or another. Whereas medieval
cities were focused on cathedrals, ours are built around our huge
medical complexes, even as our suburbs have country clubs and
golf courses at their center. In this mania for longevity and plea-
sure, Tolkien shows that we have lost the ancient honesty of the
psalmist: "So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart
of wisdom" (90:12). As we shall see, he regards death as one of
our greatest gifts.
The Ruling Ring provides a temptation altogether as seductive
as longevity—namely, invisibility. To put on the Ring is to disap-
pear from sight, at least from all but Sauron and his Ringwraiths.
Oddly, it cannot block the vision of the pure—namely, of those
who have lived in the Undying Lands. The Ring's power of invis-
ibility proves helpful to both Bilbo and Frodo, who escape their
pursuers while wearing it. Yet here the Ring serves to enable the
Quest only unintentionally. On the whole, Tolkien suggests that it
is evil to be granted never-ending life and the absence of visible,
outward existence. These two "gifts" have utterly ruined Gollum,
as he has repeatedly used the Ring to indulge his obsessive appetite
for raw fish.
Tolkien no doubt knew Plato's account, in the Republic, of
Gyges' magical ring with the power to make its wearer invisi-
ble. Glaucon recounts the myth in order to refute Socrates' argu-
ment that the doing of good needs no external threat or reward.
Goodness is so inherently satisfying, Socrates insists, that it
requires no compensation. Glaucon contends, on the contrary,
that the story of Gyges demonstrates what happens when human
nature is not constrained. For with his magical ring, Gyges was
able to get anything he wanted. He could steal and kill without
being caught; he could seduce the king's wife by getting into her
bed without her knowing it; he could even kill the king and
ascend the throne himself—all by means of his invisibility.
Tolkien the Christian understands our fallen human nature as
Plato the rationalist did not, and he is much more agreed with
Glaucon than Socrates. Gollum is his non-Platonic witness to
the seductive strength of evil when it manifests itself through the
occult power of invisibility.
The Coercive Power of the One Ring

Even when Sauron is not at hand, luring both the sinister gold band
and its keeper to himself, the Ring has the power to tempt Frodo.
For in wearing it, he can escape immediate threats and thus pre-
serve his own life, even if not the lives of his friends. The evil deed
is able always to justify itself, as in Frodo's early desire to use the
Ring to escape the Barrow-wights: "He thought of himself running
free over the grass, grieving for Merry, and Sam, and Pippin, but
free and alive himself. Gandalf would admit that there had been
nothing else he could do" (1.152). Frodo resists this initial temp-
tation, and his resistance to its powers grows with every denial. Yet
the Ring's coercive pressure continues to bear down on him, ever
more as an external force that he must refuse, ever less as an inter-

nal longing for his own relief.
There is no doubt that corporeal life can become a great weari-
ness—whether from illness or age or even the troubles of the mind
and spirit—so much so, in fact, that it is tempting simply to be rid
of one's body. Sometimes the elves are so grieved that their spirits
simply flee their bodies. But it is the Ring's wearying effects that
make Bilbo tired of life. He confesses to Gandalf that, though he
still seems vigorous, he nonetheless feels "all thin, sort of
stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been
scraped over too much bread" (1.41). The Ring has given Bilbo
quantity but not quality of life. No wonder, then, that its ruination
of Gollum is so great. Since he possessed the Ring for five hun-
dred years, he has regressed to an almost infantile, animal-like
state.
Though he has borne the Ring for a comparatively short while,
Frodo is quickly wearied by it. He is tempted to put on the Ring in
order to escape the burden of evil, though it will enable Sauron and
his minions to locate and devour him. Even an uninviting distant
relative such as Lobelia Sackville-Baggins can tempt Frodo to
wear the Ring. "Honestly," Frodo explains to Gandalf, "I nearly
tried on Bilbo's ring. I longed to disappear" (1.48). But usually it
is the pressing power of the Ring itself that makes him want simply
to vanish, perhaps into nothingness. This temptation becomes
especially acute as he faces the Ringwraiths: "[S]omething seemed
to be compelling him to disregard all warnings, and he longed to
yield. Not with the hope of escape, or doing anything, either good
or bad: he simply felt that he must take the Ring and put it on his
finger" (1.207-8).
The essence of the Ring's evil is coercion as well as seduction:
it enslaves the will. Not even Gandalf can break its power, nor does
he desire to do so. Only if Frodo freely surrenders and destroys the
Ring in the volcanic Cracks of Doom can his own mind and will
be freed from its compulsion. Gandalf explains the deep and para-
doxical relation between freedom and the good, as also between
coercion and evil: "Already you too, Frodo cannot easily let it go,
nor will to damage it. And I could not 'make' you—except by
force, which would break your mind" (1.70). For Gandalf magi-
cally to have liberated Frodo from the Ring's constraints would
have made the hobbit into Gandalf's puppet. Yet the alternative is
almost as evil, for with his every refusal of the Ring's magnetic
power, it bears down on Frodo ever more irresistibly.
Tolkien is close to Paul and Augustine and their long train of
followers who argue that real freedom is the liberty to choose and
do the good, and that to do evil is to act unfreely, to exercise an
enslaved will. These theologians all insist that God's grace enables
our right response to it. For this venerable theological tradition, it
is better to say that we are the product of the gifts we have gra-
ciously received rather than the sum of the decisions we have
bravely made. Not all evil is chosen. For while evil can subtly
seduce, it can also brutally enforce its will. When the Ring thus
bullies its victims, it can work its spell on even the most resistant
will. This is the bitter truth that Frodo discovers in the Company's
first encounter with the Ringwraiths:
Frodo was hardly less terrified than his companions; he was
quaking as if he was bitter cold, but his terror was swallowed
up in a sudden temptation to put on the Ring. The desire to do
this laid hold of him, and he could think of nothing else. . . .
He could not speak. He felt Sam looking at him, as if he knew
that his master was in some trouble, but he could not turn
towards him. . . . He shut his eyes and struggled for a while;
but resistance became unbearable, and at last he slowly drew
out the chain, and slipped the Ring on the forefinger of his left
hand. (1.207-8)
As the Company and their friends move ever closer to their
final confrontation with Sauron and his mighty forces, they are
required to exercise their own wills to defy the onslaught of evil.
Some of them seem to resist it more readily than others. Faramir
confesses, for instance, that he would not pick up the Ring if he
found it lying by the road, and Sam is able to relinquish it freely.
Yet Tolkien repeatedly emphasizes the power of the Ring to break
even the strongest of wills. Gandalf warns Boromir, for example,
that "its strength . . . is too great for anyone to wield at will, save
only those who have already a great power of their own. But for
them it holds an even deadlier peril. The very desire of it corrupts

the heart" (1.281).
Precisely by such desire is Boromir corrupted. Even had he suc-
ceeded in seizing the Ring from Frodo, Boromir would have used
the Ring as he promised—to fight and perhaps even to defeat
Sauron. But then he would have exalted himself as a new and
worse Lord of Evil. Gandalf explains the coercive power of the
Ring to Denethor, the father of Boromir: "He would have stretched
out his hand to this thing, and taking it he would have fallen. He
would have kept it for his own, and when he returned you would
not have known your son" (3.86). The Ring creates a compulsion,
in short, that cannot be broken with mere human strength of will.
Tolkien gives new and chilling credence to the saying of Lord
Acton: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Frodo himself, as bearer of the Ring, finds its force to be
increasingly irresistible. So it was with Bilbo. His frivolous use of
the Ring at his going-away birthday party seems but a mischievous
prank. When Gandalf returns to take the Ring from him, however,
Bilbo has become surprisingly entranced by it. In fact, the wizard
is forced to threaten Bilbo with wrath before the hobbit will sur-
render it. Even in his dotage, when Frodo and the Company come
to visit the doddering Bilbo in Rivendell, the old hobbit still lusts
for the Ring—so great is its mesmerizing control over him. Even
guileless Sam feels the compulsion of the Ring when he takes it
from the seemingly dead Frodo outside Shelob's Lair. He finds his
hand moving inexorably toward the Ring, as if his own body had
been autonomously inhabited by its power. Sam is able to refuse
the Ring's lure largely because his heart is uncorrupted, because
he desires nothing other than to serve his master Frodo, and
because his guilelessness penetrates the deceits of the Enemy in
the tower of Cirith Ungol:
Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the
Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across
the darkened land, and armiesflockingto his call as he marched
to the overthrow of Barad-dur. And then all the clouds rolled
away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of
Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought
forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his
own, and all this could be.
In that hour of trial it was the love of his master that helped
most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still
unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his
heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even
if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one
small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a
garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands
of others to command. (3.177)
Frodo's will, by contrast, is overwhelmed by the commanding

power of the Ring. The closer he comes to the place where it was
forged in the very heart of Sauron's evil empire, the greater its
power over him. It has not only rendered Frodo physically emaci-
ated; it has also drained his spirit, leaving him with an over-
whelming sense of hopelessness. The dread fear that he will not
succeed in his mission, especially as the obstacles to his errand
increase in fury and horror, infects Frodo with a deep pessimism.
The Ring begins to occupy every waking moment of Frodo's con-
sciousness: "I begin to see it in my mind all the time, like a great
wheel of fire.... I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil
between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my
waking eyes, and all else fades" (3.196, 215).
Having repeatedly shown pity to the treacherous Gollum and
having arrived at the Cracks of Doom so weary that he cannot
walk, Frodo seems incapable of self-defense, much less self-will.
But when Gollum leaps on Frodo's back in an attempt to seize the
Ring at the last, Frodo flicks him away as if he were an insect. Sam
is rightly startled to find Frodo suddenly so strong and merciless.
It is evident that Frodo has mustered a heroic determination to
carry out his Quest at the absolute end. So fully is he imbued with
both sanctity and strength that Frodo undergoes a virtual transfig-
uration. Sam sees him, therefore, as a stern and terrible creature,
"untouchable now by pity, a figure robed in white" (3.221). At the
very apogee of Frodo's holiness and might, however, he is over-
whelmed by Sauronic force. Frodo becomes, in fact, a virtual ven-
triloquist for the coercive evil that invades both his mind and will,
as he speaks in a loud and stentorian voice that is not at all his own:
"I have come," Frodo declares. "But I do not choose now to do
what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!"
(3.223).
This is surely the most surprising and anti-climactic moment in
the novel. After his long twilight struggle to carry the Ring back to
the Cracks of Doom, Frodo fails at the very last—not because of
his own weakness of will but because the Ring finally overwhelms
him. Thus does the Quest end not in jubilant victory but disap-
pointing defeat, as Tolkien deflates all his readers' hopes for a con-
ventional heroic ending. Yet he accomplishes something far more
important—the awful juxtaposition of radical good and radical
evil. Tolkien demonstrates that the mightiest evil can summon
forth the very highest good in a character such as Frodo, even as it
defeats him. So did Gethsemane end in Golgotha, as Jesus died
with a shout that is hardly a cry of conquest. The cross is the great
Christian eucatastrophe because it is sheer defeat overcome by
sheer victory.
The Quest is completed not by Frodo the brave but by the greed-
maddened Gollum as he bites the Ring off Frodo's finger and,
dancing his jig of joy at the brink of the volcanic fissure, tumbles
with it into the inferno. Sauron's voice had warned Gollum that he
would go to the fire if he seized the Ring. Yet the prophecy is ful-
filled in ways that neither of them could have foreseen, as the Ring
finally destroys itself. Many readers have been flattened by this
conclusion to the Quest. They have wanted Frodo to act heroically
at the end, flinging the Ring triumphantly into the molten lava that
alone can dissolve it. Such an ending would have provided us with
a traditional hero whom we could have exalted and acclaimed as
one of our own. It would have also assured us that evil can be
defeated by dint of human and hobbitic effort.
Tolkien refuses such illusions. By granting the Ring the power
of coercion, Tolkien uncovers what is surely the chief evil of the
modern world—the various tyrannies that have been exercised
over the human spirit. The most obvious examples are to be found
in the assorted totalitarianisms of the previous century. Quite apart
from the multiplied millions who were slaughtered by their own
governments, many more were made to live in constant fear of vio-

lating the oppressive system and thus bringing its terror upon
them. Theirs was the daily dread that the Company also must eat.
Tolkien demonstrates that the human spirit is not meant to bear up
under such hideous pressures. Yet we who live in the so-called free
world—the nations of the democratic West—have created our own
compulsions. Our culture of comfort and convenience offers
allurements altogether as personally enslaving as totalitarian
regimes are politically imprisoning. Yet The Lord of the Rings
envisions a drastically alternative way of life that is dedicated to
overcoming the siren charms and coercions of evil. And it is to this
human counter-action and divine corrective to the calamity of evil
that we now turn.
Chapter Three
The Counter-Action to Evil:

Tolkien's Vision of the Moral Life
1 olkien's engagement with evil in The Lord of the Rings, though

fearfully honest and utterly convincing, is not the heart of his book.
This would be true only if he had confined himself to its pagan and
pre-Christian ethos. While Tolkien immensely admired the heroic
cultures of ancient Scandinavia and Germany, he could not finally
affirm the overwhelming darkness and hopelessness of their out-
look. In the antique pagan world, evil could be resisted but not
overcome, either in this life or the next. As we have heard from the
Venerable Bede, life in the antique North was likened to the flight
of a sparrow into the one end of a lighted mead hall and out the
other: from black nothingness into brief light and then back to final
night. For all the honor that Tolkien accords to the grim realism of
Northernness, he was a devout Catholic who infused his work with
profound Christian convictions. The chief of these convictions is
that the Light defines the darkness, that evil's triumph is not final,
that even within this present life it can be partially overcome, that
true life is animated by a true vision of the finally triumphant
Good, and therefore that we have been given a wondrous means of
counter-action to the calamity that Melkor and Sauron and their
slaves have brought into the world.
The perennial appeal of Tolkien's great novel lies in this bright
vision of hope, and thus in the moral and religious strength that it
yields. Many of my students have confessed that they feel "clean"
75
after reading The Lord of the Rings. They refer not chiefly to the
book's avoidance of decadent sex but, far more significantly, to its
bracing moral power: its power to lift them out of the small-
minded obsessions of the moment and into the perennial concerns
of ethical and spiritual life.
Yet while Tolkien made The Lord of the Rings implicitly Chris-
tian as The Silmarillion is not, this change is not won at the
expense of the pagan virtues. Knowing that the early church made
common cause with the best qualities of its surrounding cultures—
especially their moral teaching—Tolkien follows this ancient
Christian practice. He shares the sentiment of Augustine that
Christians should raid the treasures of the pagans just as the
Israelites brought gold out of Egypt. Only when the virtues are
related strictly to themselves and not referred to God, says Augus-
tine, do they become vices. Hence Tolkien's insistence that Chris-
tians have no right to despise even so despairing a theme as the one
that pervades Beowulf—"that man, each man and all men, and all
their works shall die. . . . that all glory (or as we might say 'cul-
ture' or 'civilization') ends in night" (MC, 23).
Tolkien held with both Augustine and Aquinas that Christian
revelation completes and perfects human knowledge and effort.
Since he was a Catholic who subscribed to the synthesis of pagan
and Christian thought forged by these great medieval theologians,
we will examine his understanding of the moral life by examining
the four classical or cardinal virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude,
and temperance. They enable human existence to flourish, in an
elementary but indispensable way, even apart from the revelation
given in Israel and Christ. Yet it is important to emphasize that all
human longings and possibilities are already the gift of God. "You
have made us for yourself," St. Augustine famously declares at the
beginning of his Confessions, "and our hearts are restless until they
rest in You." The so-called pagan virtues are not autonomous
human achievements, therefore, but the work of God's grace
already and always present in human life.
Because the virtues are divinely implanted, the moral life is
not a program of ethical uplift, strenuous self-help, or a deter-
mined striving to do better. As Augustine makes clear, we have
The Counter-Action to Evil 77
to be made teachable by God's own grace: "Whence it happens

that even with the assistance of holy men, or even if the holy
angels themselves take part, no one rightly learns those things
which pertain to life with God unless he is made by God docile
to God, to whom it is said in the Psalm, 'teach me to do thy will,
for thou art my God'" (On Christian Doctrine, 4.33). When thus
infused with divine grace, the cardinal virtues are not only
enabled but transformed. They are stretched beyond ordinary
human potential to achieve things transcendently good. Again
according to Augustine, they become the very basis of the Chris-
tian life:
To live well is nothing other than to love God with all one's heart,
with all one's soul and with all one's efforts; from this it comes
about that love is kept whole and uncorrupted (through temper-
ance). No misfortune can disturb it (and this is fortitude). It obeys
only [God] (and this is justice), and is careful in discerning
things, so as not to be surprised by deceit or trickery (and this is
prudence). (On the Morals of the Catholic Church, 1, 25, 46)
Tolkien the Christian imbues The Lord of the Rings not only
with the pagan virtues as they are classically conceived, but also
with the conviction that, when completed and perfected, prudence
issues in holy folly, justice in undeserved mercy, courage in unex-
pected endurance, and temperance in joyful self-denial.
Wisdom and Prudence:

The Virtues That Prompt Self-Sacrifice
Gandalf's very name indicates his gift of wisdom. "Wizard"
derives from the Middle English wys, meaning wise. The proper
name for wizards in Tolkien's mythology is Istari, which means
"scholars." Gandalf's wisdom is thus linked to his learning. Wis-
dom is also a central virtue in the biblical tradition. Both Proverbs
and Ecclesiastes speak of the wise as being receptive to instruc-
tion, as heeding the counsel of others, as possessing self-control,
honesty, diligence. The restraint and integrity of the wise enable
them to act in a timely way, so that wisdom becomes a practical as
well as an intellectual virtue. The wise are also teachers and schol-
ars and writers, and they are usually old, like Gandalf, since their
wisdom has been gained from long experience. The opposite of the
wise man is the fool: the one so driven by passions and false
desires as to act wrongly. Gandalf calls Saruman a "fool" (2.188)
in this precise sense. The fool finally is driven to deny even God:
"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Ps. 14:1). While
the Old Testament derives wisdom from God's good creation, the
New Testament locates it in Jesus Christ himself. He is a rabbi, a
wisdom teacher. Jesus employs the aphoristic and parabolic style
of the sages, and he invites his disciples to "learn from me" (Matt.
11:29). Paul also exalts wisdom. He commands Christians to
"walk, not as unwise men but as wise" (Eph. 5:15), and to receive
the "spirit of wisdom" from the Father of glory (Eph. 1:17).
The classical virtue of prudence is not far removed from the bib-
lical understanding of wisdom. Yet the word "prudence" has been
corrupted almost beyond retrieval. We have come to think of
prudential people as small-minded seekers after their own self-
preservation. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, by contrast, pru-
dence was the chief of the virtues, the one on which all the others
are based. It informs the other virtues because it entails a clear-
eyed knowledge of objective truth as well as the ability to act on
this knowledge. The prudent person makes decisions that are
appropriate to the particular situation. Aragorn is a fit ruler and
future king of Gondor and Arnor because he possesses wisdom and
prudence of this kind. Repeatedly he helps the Company deal with
true dilemmas—not with choices between good and evil, but
between equally uninviting alternatives.
Aragorn displays his prudence perhaps most clearly when the
Company is first divided, with Frodo and Sam fleeing toward Mor-
dor, while Merry and Pippin have been captured by ores. It would
seem obvious that he should seek to aid the Ring-bearer and Sam,
but Aragorn's wisdom discerns not the patent but the subtle
truth—that they should rescue the weakest of the hobbits:
"Let me think!" said Aragorn. "And now may I make a right
choice, and change the evil fate of this unhappy day!" He stood
silent for a moment. "I will follow the Ores," he said at last. "I
would have guided Frodo to Mordor and gone with him to the
end; but if I seek him now in the wilderness, I must abandon the
captives to torment and death. My heart speaks clearly at last:
the fate of the Bearer is in my hands no longer. The Company
has played its part. Yet we that remain cannot forsake our com-
panions while we have strength left. Come! We will go now.
Leave all that can be spared behind! We will press on by day and
dark!" (2.21)
Aragorn's appeal to the dictates of his heart reveals that prudence

is a virtual synonym for conscience. The heart is the locus of desire,
and the chest has been understood as the traditional stronghold of
conscience—no less than the place of its worst violations. "The
precepts ofthe LORD are right, rejoicing the heart" (Ps. 19:8). "The
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can
understand it?" (Jer. 17:9). The heart must be transfigured by pru-
dence and wisdom in order for the desires to be redirected toward
the Good. Only when the conscience is properly formed can we
instinctively discern the truth and act swiftly upon it.
Tolkien's adherence to the classical Christian understanding
of education as "training in virtue" accounts for the long chap-
ters devoted to the learning of ancient lore, as the Company lis-
tens to the stories and legends that give moral and spiritual shape
to their lives. The second chapters of the first two books of The
Fellowship of the Ring—"The Shadow of the Past" and "The
Council of Elrond"—serve not as mere historical background,
but rather as carefully narrated wisdom. We encounter prudential
wisdom at many other places in Tolkien. Aphorisms—succinctly
expressed wisdom distilled from the long human struggle—
occur throughout The Lord ofthe Rings. "Need brooks no delay,
yet late is better than never" (3.110). "Twice blessed is help
unlooked for" (3.123). "Oft hope is born, when all is forlorn"
(3.153). "Too often seen is seen no longer" (MR, 316). Some-
times these chestnut apothegms have to be modified. When
finally the Shire is cleansed of its invaders and thus restored to
its original happiness, old Gaffer Gamgee exclaims: "All's well
as ends Better!" (3.302). The compressed wisdom that counts
most is also rhymed:
All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost,
From the ashes afire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken:
The crownless again shall be king.
(1.260-61)
The Consequences of Imprudence in Matters

of Renown and Romance
To lack prudence and wisdom is to act foolishly and thought-
lessly—seeking merely one's own good rather than the good of
friends and the larger community. Tolkien deftly discloses such
imprudence at work in the otherwise admirable character of
Eowyn. She chafes at the restrictions that her gender has forced
upon her. She does not want to be relegated to the role of protec-
tor and steward in the absence of King Theoden and his warriors.
She possesses the bravery of even the most valiant man, and she
wants it to be fully realized and recognized in her role as shield-
maiden:
"Your duty is with your people," [Aragorn] answered.

"Too often have I heard of duty," [Eowyn] cried. "But am I
not of the House of Eorl, a shieldmaiden and not a dry-nurse? I
have waited on faltering feet long enough. Since they falter no
longer, it seems, may I not now spend my life as I will?"
"Few may do that with honour," he answered. . . .
"Shall I always be left behind when the Riders depart, to
mind the house while they win renown, and find food and beds
when they return?"
"A time may come soon," said he, "when none will return.
Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall
remember the deeds that are done in the last defence of your
homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are
unpraised."
And she answered: "All your words are but to say: you are a
woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have
died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the
house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House
of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and
I do not fear either pain or death."
"What do you fear, lady?" [Aragorn] asked.
"A cage," she said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age
accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond
recall or desire." (3.57-58)
A contemporary feminist could hardly make a more impas-
sioned case for the liberation of women from their traditional roles,
and Tolkien is evidently sympathetic. Yet Eowyn reveals her
imprudence in ways that must be remarked. She lusts after renown.
She believes that her only lasting worth lies in being remembered
for her brave deeds, especially in dying heroically while defend-
ing her people. Tolkien does not set up Eowyn as an easy target for
criticism. In her urgency to seek satisfaction in present celebrity
and future fame, she stands in accord with many ancient and mod-
ern cultures—especially those which lack any transcendent moral
or religious referent.
Aragorn answers Eowyn's plea in terribly unfashionable terms
that Tolkien makes no attempt to soften. Aragorn reminds this fear-
less lady that her vocation is not a matter of gratified desire but of
faithful duty. He engages in battle, therefore, only because he has
been appointed, not because he wants recognition. Aragorn thus
urges Eowyn to find honor in doing deeds that may finally go
unhonored. He calls her to act on the virtue that has no external
reward but that possesses its own intrinsic merit. The ancient
pagans were not alone in exalting salutary acts that win no worldly
renown. "What does it profit a man," asks Jesus in a similar fash-
ion, "to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" (Mark 8:36). Yet
it is not only to deeds of inherent worth that Jesus summons his
followers, but rather to cross-bearing discipleship—to a virtue that
finds its goal in a Kingdom at once in the world and yet beyond the
world.
Far subtler and more deceptive is the imprudence implicit in
Eowyn's romantic love for Aragorn. She is drawn to him because
he is a lordly figure, a man of valorous deeds. She tries to win his

affection by addressing him in the most intimate terms. Gradually
she resorts to the affectionate "thee" rather than the polite "you."
When Aragorn reminds her that she has no command to march
southward, there to encounter the forces of Sauron, she replies in
seductive terms: "Neither have those others who go with thee.
They go only because they would not be parted from thee—
because they love thee" (3.58). Aragorn is pained at being unable
to requite Eowyn's love, yet he could not possibly return it. He is
already betrothed to the elven maiden Arwen. As a man of
unbreakable integrity, Aragorn cannot even entertain the possi-
bility of loving another. More importantly, he sees that Eowyn's
love is romantic in the bad sense: it's an infatuation. She has no
experience of Aragorn that would enable her truly to know and
love him. She is enamored, instead, with his image. She seeks her
own exaltation by partaking of his gallant persona. Hence
Aragorn's prudential wisdom in making this confession to her
brother Eomer:
Few other griefs amid the ill chances of this world have more
bitterness and shame for a man's heart than to behold the love
of a lady so fair and brave that cannot be returned.. .. And yet,
Eomer, I say to you that she loves you more truly than me; for
you she loves and knows; but in me she loves only a shadow and
a thought: a hope of glory and great deeds, and lands far from
the fields of Rohan. (3.143)
When Eowyn finally finds her marital match in Faramir, son of
Denethor the steward of Gondor, they are not only united by
romantic attraction but also by common experience. They have
both been injured in the battle of Pelennor Fields—where Eowyn
acquitted herself valiantly indeed. In the Houses of Healing they
come to know each other as wounded warriors rather than exalted
heroes. They back rather than run into love. Faramir discerns that
Eowyn's beauty is linked with her suffering—"that her loveliness
amid her grief would pierce his heart" (3.237). She in turn gradu-
ally softens her stern will as she learns to wait patiently with
Faramir for the return of Aragorn and his armies.
Romantic love is less a matter of intention, Tolkien suggests,

than of inadvertence. Not for nothing are we said to fall in love. Pas-
sion rightly implies something that we undergo rather than under-
take. Tolkien knows that ems in the classic sense does not mean
genital arousal but a longing that summons us out of ourselves, a
desire for an object radically other than ourselves, a yearning that
itself brings satisfaction greater than any grossly satisfied appetite.
Perhaps the most classically erotic moment in the entire 1,200-page
epic occurs when Faramir and Eowyn are walking along the
fortress walls. They find their hands meeting and clasping, "though
they did not know it. And still they waited for they knew not what"
(3.240). They await an undetermined future because they have been
wafted out of all selfish interest into a true and lasting regard for
each other. They have learned the wisdom of love.
Prudence, Wisdom, and Moral Growth

Prudence is also closely linked with a willingness to receive coun-
sel from others—especially from wise friends such as Gandalf.
Repeatedly the Fellowship is made to recognize its utter depen-
dence on Gandalf's superior knowledge and prudential wisdom.
When Gandalf learns that Bilbo has lied about his acquisition of
the Ring, he is determined to discover what actually happened.
What seems to be a throwaway line nonetheless strikes with real
force: "the wizard seemed to think the truth important" (1.22).
Truth is important because it is not transient but perduring: the one
sure guide to life. Though the novel's action has an ancient pre-
Christian setting, readers can hardly fail to note the immense cur-
rency—in a world where nothing seems stable, everything out of
joint, the times vexed beyond belief—of Tolkien's insistence on
the sheer objectivity of truth and goodness and beauty. It comes to
its clearest expression in this exchange between Eomer and
Aragorn:
"The world is all grown strange," [declared Eomer]. "Elf and
Dwarf in company walk in our daily fields; and folk speak with
the Lady of the Wood and yet live; and the Sword comes back
to war that was broken in the long ages ere the fathers of our
fathers rode into the Mark! How shall a man judge what to do
in such times?"
"As he ever has judged," said Aragorn. "Good and ill have
not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among
Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part
to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own
house." (2.40-41)
Without the wise truthfulness of Aragorn and Gandalf and Tree-
beard, the Quest would never have succeeded. Yet Gandalf is noted
for the dark candor of his counsel. Like the Hebrew prophets, he
rarely if ever recommends a convenient or easy course of action.
After long absences in search of the truth about the situation the
Company actually faces, he often returns with "tidings of grief and
danger." "Gandalf Stormcrow" is the derisive name that Grima
Wormtongue gives Gandalf because of his ominous prophecies.
His searing truthfulness angers and disappoints those who want
cheering news and easy direction. Yet it cannot be otherwise, Gan-
dalf explains, since he is called to discern and report the truth. He
is no avuncular figure giving unasked advice, as he himself con-
fesses: "I come seldom but when my help is needed" (3.21).
Prudence is often allied with magnanimity—with a generosity
and openness that abjures all small-souled greed and self-interest.
Above all the other virtues, prudence enables moral growth, for pru-
dent persons become increasingly able to act in ways that are appro-
priate to their circumstances. They conform themselves to the
transcendent moral reality that always commands their obedience.
The Lord of the Rings is a book with enduring appeal because nearly
every member of the Company undergoes immense moral and spir-
itual growth. Unlike there-and-back-again adventures, which enable
one to return home not greatly changed, the Quest leaves everyone
allied with the Company profoundly altered for the good. Even
Boromir, the single betrayer of the Company's cause, dies well.
Prudence is not limited to the intellectually brilliant and the
learned. It often characterizes those who lack formal education and
worldly shrewdness, but whose uncomplicated minds and wills are
conformed to the life of virtue. Hence the psalmists' declaration that
"the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple" (19:7).
Merry and Pippin, the youngest and most inexperienced of the hob-
bits, are turned into moral adults by means of their year-long Quest.
Thus do they astonish their old friends, who can hardly recognize
them when they return to the Shire—and not only because the Ent-
draughts have made them grow so rapidly. Their heightened phys-
ical stature is also a sign of their surprising spiritual growth. So do
Legolas and Gimli experience immense moral enhancement. They
begin as historic enemies but end as reconciled friends; in fact,
Gimli joins Legolas on his final voyage to Valinor.
Though he is the best of the hobbits from the start, Frodo's moral
enhancement is revealed in his boundless mercy, his unswerving
sense of what is right, his unbending devotion to the destruction of
the Ring, even if Sauron defeats him in the end. Yet surely it is the
bumbling Samwise Gamgee who experiences the largest moral
growth. He begins as the unquestioning servant and naive tagalong,
eager to see elves and "oliphaunts." With his peasant grammar and
manners and imagination, Sam is an unlikely candidate for hero-
ism. Yet he ends as the thoughtful and valiant bearer of Frodo up
the steep slopes of Mount Doom, and finally he returns home as the
future mayor of Hobbiton. He also restores the natural world of the
Shire after it had been ravaged by Saruman's servants.
Gandalf can set sail for the Grey Havens at the end because he
is assured that the Company has achieved the moral and spiritual
wisdom that will sustain them throughout the remainder of their
lives. They have undergone a tremendous sanctification—to use
the standard Christian term. Tolkien himself described the moral
structure of his work as "primarily . . . the ennoblement (or sanc-
tification) of the humble" (L, 237). His characters acquire both
dignity and sanctity in their faithfulness to each other, to the Quest,
even to Iluvatar himself. Like Virgil blessing Dante at the close of
the Purgatorio, Gandalf crowns and miters his friends as true lords
over themselves. He also echoes Jesus' own departure from his
disciples in the Fourth Gospel, albeit with a notable difference:
Jesus leaves in order that he might send the Counselor to "guide
you into all the truth" (John 16:13). The Holy Spirit will accom-
pany Christ's followers along the hard path of faith, until he meets
them again at the final resurrection. Despite huge disparities in the
two farewells, the similarities must also be marked. Gandalf can

leave his companions behind because the rigors and temptations
they have suffered, the acts of sacrifice and solidarity they have
performed, will enable them to live virtuously without his aid:
"I am with you at present," said Gandalf, "but soon I shall not
be. I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs your-
selves; that is what you have been trained for. Do you not yet
understand? My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things
to rights, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear
friends, you will need no help. You are grown up now. Grown
indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer
any fear at all for any of you." (3.275)
Gandalf is the perfect embodiment of wisdom and prudence from
the book's opening to its close. Only rarely do we find him making
any errors in judgment—when he trusts Saruman at Isengard and
when he leaves Gollum's trail. Yet he too experiences enormous
moral transformation, even a virtual apotheosis—from Gandalf the
Grey to Gandalf the White. His deepest wisdom is displayed most
impressively in his surprising stratagem for overcoming the Ring's
power—namely, by sending it back to the Cracks of Doom and
destroying it in the fires whence it was first forged. Erestor the
Elflord calls Gandalf's policy both foolish and despairing, perhaps
hoping that the Company might simply abandon the Ring and thus
be unbothered by Sauron. Erestor lacks not only the prudential
insight to discern moral subtlety; he also fails to see that Gandalf has
access to a wisdom that radically transcends simplistic prudence:
"Despair, or folly?" said Gandalf. "It is not despair, for despair
is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.
It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have
been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling
to false hope. Well, let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes
of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a
nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure he
knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts.
Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it,
that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this,
we shall put him out of reckoning." (1.282-83)
The Limits of Prudence and the

"Folly" of Self-Surrendering Sacrifice
One must virtually stop one's ears to keep from hearing echoes of
the very similar summons that St. Paul makes to the Christians at
Corinth. Paul repeatedly reminds them that the unbelieving world
regards the gospel of salvation by suffering as mere foolishness:
"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but
to us who are being saved it is the power of God. .. . Has not God
made foolish the wisdom of the world? . . . For the foolishness of
God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than
men.... God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise"
(ICor. 1:18,20,25,27).
Sauron possesses the wisdom of this world, since he is a minion
of the one who serves as its prince and ruler (John 12:31). He believes
that anyone holding the Ring of power will use it to obtain even
greater power. In the fallen world, the rich want more riches, the
strong greater strength, the famous still larger fame. Such is the bro-
ken reason that prudential wisdom—whether classical or Christian—
always scandalizes. "God chose what is weak in the world," Paul
continues, "to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised
in the world, even things that are not [the non-entities], to bring to
nothing things that are [the great and powerful]" (1 Cor. 1:27-28).
This staggering piece of paradoxical wisdom—that the weak and the
simple and the humble can accomplish what the mighty and the
clever and the proud cannot—is also articulated by Elrond: "The road
must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wis-
dom will carry us far upon it. . . . Yet such is oft the course of deeds
that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they
must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere" (1.283).
Justice: The Virtue That Requires Mercy

The words "just" and "justice" appear in Scripture far more fre-
quently than do references to any of the other virtues, including love.
God's justice is his righteousness, his law, his commandment. It is
also the divine verdict that produces either reward or punishment.
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has
anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent
me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the cap-
tives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to
proclaim the year of the LORD'S favor, and the day of vengeance
of our God; to comfort all who mourn.... For I the LORD love
justice, I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them
their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with
them. . . . For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a gar-
den causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will
cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the
nations. (Isa. 61:1-2, 8, 11)
Justice in the biblical sense is closely related to what is called

"doom" in both The Lord of the Rings and Christian tradition: at
Doomsday justice shall finally be realized. God's people are called
to live justly, in the confidence that God not only commands jus-
tice, but also that he himself is the utterly just Lord. He alone can
discriminate between the righteous and the wicked; he alone
ensures that all people, whether here or hereafter, receive what is
due to them; he alone can grant true mercy. The Jewish prophets
are vehement, moreover, in their denunciation of Israel's kings and
rulers who fail to maintain policies that secure justice, especially
for widows and orphans, for the poor and "the needy of the land."
Jesus is no less relentless in his cry for justice, especially in his
denunciation of the injustices committed by those who are reli-
gious: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe
mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier mat-
ters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have
done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining
out a gnat and swallowing a camel!" (Matt. 23:23-24).
Justice has a similarly high status in the pagan world, certainly
in the world of ancient Greece and Rome that Tolkien admired no
less than he honored the Scandinavian and Germanic realms. If
prudence discerns the good, justice enacts it. The good man is the
just man, the one who renders others their due, especially when a
debt is owed. Every sin, it follows, is an injustice; for sin is the
refusal to seek the good of the other, the good of the community,
and thus the good that God himself wills. As in classical teaching,
so in the Bible is justice considered the key to social existence: "If
your brother becomes poor, and cannot maintain himself with you,
you shall maintain him; as a stranger and sojourner he shall live
with you. Take no interest from him or increase, but fear your God;
that your brother may live beside you" (Lev. 25:35-36).
Justice requires that we grant not only our own kind what is
rightly theirs, but also that we provide strangers and aliens their
just recompense. To deprive them of what they are due is also to
harm ourselves, for we thereby cut ourselves off from those who
are vital to our own existence. We cannot be fully ourselves except
through just relations with others—all others. In every thought and
word and deed, it follows, we are either adding to or subtracting
from the world's justice. Every human act turns us into either cred-
itors or debtors—as we either restore or rob others of what justly
belongs to them. The hobbit penchant for party-giving acknowl-
edges this fundamental fact—as they find it more blessed to give
than to get. The hobbits, we thus learn, "were hospitable and
delighted in parties, and in presents, which they gave away freely
and eagerly accepted" (1.11).
They seem to understand that nothing that we own is strictly
ours. All our possessions belong to the treasury of gifts that God
has given to everyone. To show hospitality to others, especially
strangers, is to manifest this fundamental human commonality.
Hospitality is central to both the religion of the Bible and the cus-
toms of most ancient cultures, where strangers are made guests.
Scripture is replete with commands to welcome aliens: "When a
stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him
wrong. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the
native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were
strangers in the land of Egypt" (Lev. 19:33-34). Jesus repeatedly
relies on the hospitality of others, and he commends it, in Matthew
25, as a key distinction between those who have served him and
those who have not. Jesus also insists that hospitality be shown to
those who cannot reciprocate: "When you give a dinner or ban-
quet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen
or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be
repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the
lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay
you" (Luke 14:12-14).
A gracious welcome for weary travelers is so vital to the ethos
of Middle-earth that, when diminished or omitted, it gives cause for
special notice—as Gandalf sharply reminds the king of Rohan:
"The courtesy of your hall is somewhat lessened of late, Theoden
son of Thengel" (2.118). Yet this one occasion is an exception to the
rule. Throughout The Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship repeatedly
benefits from the hospitality shown to them along their way—from
Farmer Cotton at the very beginning, through the various good
offices of Tom Bombadil, Elrond, Galadriel, Faramir, the Riders of
Rohan; on to Treebeard's generous hosting of Merry and Pippin
toward the end. Aragorn performs a veritably epic act of hospital-
ity when he opens up the entire realm of Gondor for the celebration
of his marriage to Arwen. Hospitality thus proves crucial to the
practice of justice in Middle-earth, since the free giving and receiv-
ing of gifts ensures that no one seeks merely his own good.
The Complacency of the Safe and the Satisfied

After having my students describe the various qualities of life in
the Shire—whose quaint practices and idiosyncratic habits are at
once amusing and endearing—I often ask them to name the hob-
bits' chief problem. A long pause usually follows. The students'
silence is quite revealing. The hobbits' problem is, ironically, that
they have no problems. They enjoy a virtually Edenic existence—
so peaceful are their relations, so delightful are their pleasures, so
just are their laws. The life of the Shire constitutes, in fact,
Tolkien's vision of life as it is supposed to be lived. Hobbits were
not meant to bear the burdens of the world, but rather to preserve
a last unspoiled corner of Middle-earth as a haven of modest and
exemplary life. Yet the hobbits have lived in safety and comfort
for so long that they are threatened by complacency and self-
satisfaction. Since they have had no emergencies in recent mem-
ory, they assume that crises will never arise. Inward complacency
and decay, Tolkien suggests, is altogether as threatening as out-
ward assault. Thus have the hobbits come to take for granted what
should have been a perennial cause for both vigilance and thanks-
giving—the protection provided them by many unknown friends
outside the Shire:
There in that pleasant corner of the world they plied their well-
ordered business of living, and they heeded less and less the
world outside where dark things moved, until they came to think
that peace and plenty were the rule in Middle-earth and the right
of all sensible folk. They forgot or ignored what little they had
ever known of the Guardians, and of the labours of those that
made possible the long peace of the Shire. They were, in fact,
sheltered, but they had ceased to remember it. (1.14)
The hobbits are far from ruined by their life of ease. Quite to the
contrary, they are "still curiously tough" (1.15)—able, if pressed,
to do without the good things that they rightly delight in. Even so,
Tolkien does not exempt the hobbits from the temptations that
beset all other creatures. When Gandalf informs Frodo that he has
been called to destroy the Ring, the hobbit protests that he is "not
made for perilous quests." He asks the wizard why he rather than
someone else has been elected to undertake so impossible a mis-
sion. Gandalf knows that Frodo is the noblest of hobbits, yet the
wizard assures him that a very deep mystery lurks in his vocation
concerning the Ring, even as he warns Frodo never to presume on
his own incorruptibility: " 'Such questions [about chosenness] can-
not be answered,' said Gandalf. 'You may be sure that it was not
for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom
at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use
such strength and heart and wits as you have'" (1.70).
Though the Shire is immediately threatened by the lurking pres-
ence of Saruman's and Sauron's agents, the perennial temptation
of the hobbits arises from their own fallen nature. The Company's
commitment to justice requires them to combat their own injus-
tice—especially the anti-communal sin of greed. Like Dante
before him, Tolkien singles out the one evil that besets all crea-
tures—whether hobbits or men, whether elves or dwarves,
whether wizards or even valar: the injustice of cupiditas, greed.
Here again Tolkien takes his stand with the biblical insistence that
"the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this crav-
ing that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their
hearts with many pangs" (1 Tim. 6:10). Greed is the primal form
of injustice, for it seeks one's own good at the expense of others.
Chaucer's Pardoner affirms this danger in a well-worn maxim:
Radix malorum est cupiditas. The root of evil lies in greed and thus
in a lust for money, money that will satisfy our desire for posses-
sions, possessions that are meant to cushion us against discomfort
and disaster. Such are the links in the chain of cupiditas that binds
nearly everyone. It has turned Gollum, as we have seen, into a
twisted and pathetic caricature of himself.
Greed also holds Bilbo at least briefly in thrall. Though he found
the Ring by the "luck" that we gradually discover to have been
providential, Bilbo falsifies the nature of his discovery. He claims
that Gollum promised to give it to him as a "present" for winning
the riddle contest, and that he thus owns the ring by right rather
than chance. Truth is the first casualty not only of war, Tolkien
shows, but also of greed. Saruman is so greedy for the power of
the Ring that his mind and will have been bent totally out of shape
by it. He is unable to accept the freedom of Gandalf's pardon—
which will be given if only Saruman will surrender his staff and
the key to his fortress-tower of Orthanc, after his armies have been
defeated at the battle of Helm's Deep. Consumed by his selfish-
ness, Saruman is infuriated by the merciful Gandalf's promise to
return his two tokens of good conduct at some later time:
Saruman's face grew livid, twisted with rage, and a red light kin-
dled in his eyes. He laughed wildly. "Later!" he cried, and his
voice rose to a scream. "Later! Yes, when you also have the
Keys of Barad-dur itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven
kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards, and have purchased
yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those that you
wear now. A modest plan. Hardly one in which my help is
needed! I have other things to do. Do not be a fool. If you wish
to treat with me, while you have a chance, go away, and come
back when you are sober! And leave behind these cut-throats
and small rag-tag that dangle at your tail!" (2.188)
This is Tolkien's frightful picture of maniacal intransigence, utter

self-delusion, pathetic rage—as maddened greed prefers misery to
mercy. Saruman the once-revered wizard has reduced himself to
casting stupid insults at Gandalf's companions and hobbit friends.
The fundamental urge to possessiveness is most repugnantly
displayed in the giant all-devouring spider Shelob. She is allied
with neither Sauron nor Saruman: she is consumed by a rapacity
that is entirely her own—as she feeds vampirishly on the blood of
living creatures. Shelob uses her gross obesity not only to capture
but also to kill her prey, squashing them to death. It is not surpris-
ing that she should find a companion in Gollum, for he is snared
in the same sin, albeit for different reasons. Tolkien depicts Shelob
as especially disgusting, perhaps in order to signal the moral as
well as the physical flabbiness of our own culture of consumption:
She served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and
Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts,
weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food,
and her vomit darkness. Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards
of the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread
from glen to glen.. .. But her lust was not [Gollum's] lust. Lit-
tle she knew of or cared for towers, orrings,or anything devised
by mind or hand, who only desired death for all others, mind and
body, and for herself a glut of life, alone, swollen till the moun-
tains could no longer hold her up and the darkness could not
contain her. (2.332-33)
The Necessity and Limits of War

Tolkien acknowledges the hard fact that evil assaults the Company
not only from within but also from without. While such inner
allurements as greed work by way of seduction, the coercions of
Sauron are primarily external. In the end, as we have seen, Frodo
is overwhelmed by the despotic magnetism of the Ring. These two
sorts of sin cannot be combated, however, in the same fashion.
Internal evils are to be resisted by spiritual and moral discipline,
but external injustices must be halted with force. Not to employ all
the might of the Free Peoples in the fight against Sauron is to
consent to his evil. Worse still, it is to leave defenseless the "little
people" who are ground to bits by the tyrannous forces of history.

Tolkien is no pacifist.
Perhaps because the heroic cultures of the ancient North were
centered on the prowess of warriors, Tolkien repeatedly hails the
valor of soldiers, whether ancient or modern, who are willing to
die in defense of their country and people. "Let us by all means
esteem the old heroes," Tolkien writes, "men caught in the chains
of circumstance or of their own character, torn between duties
equally sacred, dying with their backs to the wall" (MC, 17). "The
wages of heroism is death," Tolkien also observed, in deliberate
alteration of St. Paul's saying in Romans 6:23 concerning the
wages of sin. It seems clear that Tolkien wants to demonstrate what
is immensely admirable, especially in our spiritually inert age,
about this ancient "exaltation of undefeated will, . . . this
indomitability, this paradox of defeat inevitable yet unacknowl-
edged." The heroism of our antique forbears is still relevant for our
time, Tolkien insists, because it reveals the most fundamental
human struggle: "man at war with the hostile world, and his
inevitable overthrow in Time" (MC, 18).
The Lord of the Rings remains a remarkably unpagan book for
disclosing what is dangerous in traditional heroism. Tolkien
observes, in fact, that "malice, greed, destruction [are] the evil side
of heroic life" (MC, 17). No pagan delight in killing one's own
kind is present anywhere in Tolkien's work. Since every creature
of Iliivatar is essentially good until inveigled by evil, Tolkien has
his heroes repeatedly extend mercy to defeated enemies. Yet there
is no forgiveness for the minions of Sauron. The ores and Uruk-hai
are wholly evil, and to slay them is to experience the joy of justice.
At the battle of Pelennor Fields, Eomer fights as "the lord of a fell
people," a fierce warrior who has the "lust of battle" on him
(3.122). Even the generous King Theoden, having been aroused
from the defeatist spell that Grima had cast upon him, leads his
army in self-abandoned fury, as they find delight in slaughtering
hellions:
Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire
in his veins, and he was born up on Snowmane [his horse] like
the attitude toward killing that Frodo espouses at the end of The
Lord of the Rings. Perhaps because he has himself been perma-
nently scarred by the violence of compulsive evil, Frodo orders a
quasi-pacifist scouring of the Shire. In his year-long absence, Hob-
biton has been taken over by the henchmen of Saruman, who have
imposed a reign of terror and suspicion on the region. The Shire
must be cleansed of these ruffians if peace and liberty are to be
restored. Yet Frodo refuses to allow any "slaying of hobbits, not
even if they have gone over to the other side. . . . No hobbit" he
points out, "has ever killed another on purpose in the Shire, and it
is not to begin now. And nobody is to be killed at all, if it can be
helped. Keep your tempers and hold your hands to the last possi-
ble moment!" (3.285). The best of all hobbits himself refuses to
participate in killing of any kind: "Frodo had been in the battle, but
he had not drawn sword, and his chief part had been to prevent the
hobbits in their wrath at their losses, from slaying those of their
enemies who threw down their weapons" (3.295-96). Again, these
are remarkable claims to come from a novel with a pagan and
heroic setting, for they demonstrate the evils that can be commit-
ted while resisting injustice.
The Blindness of Justice and the Call to Mercy and Deference

Christian tradition overcomes the limits of human justice by insist-
ing that it can never be divorced from divine mercy. To hold the
scales of equity in her hands while blindfolded, as the goddess of
Justice usually does, is to run the risk of misconstruing the relation
between mercy and justice. The problem is indeed acute. Since jus-
tice insists that all people get their due, and since mercy implies
that at least some receive what is not their due, how can the two
claims avoid contradiction? The answer lies in the biblical under-
standing of our relation to God. He does not owe us our existence
but grants it as sheer miraculous gift. There is nothing we could
possibly do to compensate for this gift, to make it something
deserved—not even to return it. We would be totally indebted even
if we were unfallen. Sin hugely magnifies our obligation to the tri-
une God. His deliverance of us from bondage through Israel and
a god of old. . . . His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it

shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green
about the white feet of his steed [A]ll the host of Rohan burst
into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was
on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terri-
ble came even to the City. (3.112-13)
Tolkien the Christian knows that to combat evil by justified
force requires a right understanding of war, lest it produce new and
worse evils. Over against the rapturous killing that usually results
even from wars fought in defense of the good, we encounter the
drastically chastened estimate of war provided by Faramir. He is
no coward skulking in fear of death. On the contrary, Faramir is
the brother of brave Boromir, and like him he is gladly willing to
die fighting evil while defending the good. But whereas Boromir
became proud and rash in his fearlessness, Faramir offers a mod-
est vision of warfare. He articulates a pre-Christian version of what
has become known as the "just war" vindication of combat under
radically restrained conditions. Faramir takes no pleasure in the
splendor and grandeur of war. He sanctions it only for defensive,
non-retaliatory purposes, and in behalf of the freedom and civility
that war may sometimes secure:
"For myself," said Faramir, "I would see the White Tree [which
once grew in the citadel of Gondor as its chief emblem] in
flower again in the courts of the kings, and the Silver Crown
return, and Minas Tirith in peace: Minas Anor again as of old,
full of light, high and fair, beautiful as a queen among other
queens: not a mistress of many slaves, nay, not even a kind mis-
tress of willing slaves. War must be, while we defend our lives
against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the
bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness,
nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend:
the city of the Men of Numenor; and I would have her loved for
her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom.
Nor feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and
wise." (2.280)
No such speech could ever be found in a book from the heroic
cultures that Tolkien so greatly admired. Even more anomalous is
Christ and the church makes the debt absolute. In the deepest
sense, therefore, God's mercy precedes his justice and serves as its
very basis. His judgment is but the enforcement of his mercy: God
insists that we live by the same merciful measure wherein we have
been created and redeemed.
Tolkien repeatedly demonstrates his understanding of this pro-
found paradox that mercy is not contrary to justice but the true
realization of it. Over and again we encounter characters who have
done wrong and who deserve punishment, but who receive justice
in the form of mercy—as their bad deeds often issue in surpris-
ingly good things. Although Eowyn broke her orders to remain
behind as the steward of Gondor, her disobedience helped win the
battle of Pelennor Fields—as she first slew the fell beast that car-
ried the Witch-king and then killed the dreadful Lord of the Nazgul
himself. King Theoden had also ordered Merry to stay behind. Yet
in his refusal to avoid the fray, Merry not only prevents the Witch-
king from slaying Eowyn, but also joins her in actually massacring
the monster. Had either of them acted on or been recompensed
according to the strict rules of justice, the struggle would surely
have been lost.
Another example of the mercy that transcends justice is to be
found in Pippin's laudable curiosity. He is driven by a desire to
know. Yet his inquisitiveness causes him to become obsessed with
the palantir after Grima hurls it down from Orthanc. Even though
Sauron had used the seeing stone to manipulate Saruman, Pippin
becomes fascinated with its power, and thus steals it from the
sleeping Gandalf. By looking into it, Pippin experiences the hor-
ror of revealing his whereabouts to Sauron. Rather than reprimand
the overly curious hobbit, however, Gandalf treats him mercifully,
pointing out how narrowly Pippin escaped the deadly vengeance
of Sauron that his curiosity could have unleashed:
You have taken no harm. There is no lie in your eyes, as I feared.
But [Sauron] did not speak long with you. A fool, but an honest
fool, you remain, Peregrin Took. Wiser ones might have done
worse in such a pass. But mark this! You have been saved, and
all your friends too, mainly by good fortune, as it is called. You
cannot count on it a second time. (2.199)
The gift of deliverance—whether by means of luck or provi-

dence—is not to be abused. As Paul might have warned Pippin, we
are not to sin in order that grace might abound (Rom. 6:1).
Those who exercise justice err not only when they fail to render
mercy unto others, but also—and even more egregiously—when
they boast of their own justice. We have heard Boromir prating about
his pure desire to use the Ring in combat against Sauron. His moral
arrogance was surely a major cause of his downfall. Scripture
always depicts such false righteousness as the worst of all evils: it
ignores human fallibility, and it denies the mercy of God as our one
guard against it. Paul inveighs against those who boast of their own
obedience to the law, when in fact everyone depends equally on the
mercy that enables true righteousness: "For there is no distinction;
since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are jus-
tified by his grace as a gift through the redemption which is in Christ
Jesus" (Rom. 3:22-24). So does Jesus utter sharp words against
those who would take pride in their obedience to the law: "when you
have done all that is commanded of you, say, 'We are unworthy ser-
vants; we have only done what was our duty'" (Luke 17:10).
Worship and prayer are the appointed Christian means for avoid-
ing all blustering self-righteousness: they honor the incarnate and liv-
ing God for his incomparable gifts. These acts of obeisance and
petition demonstrate that we could not possibly recompense God's
mercies. They also show that, in being utterly grateful, we have no
vain desire to reimburse God. Though Tolkien does not have the hob-
bits either worship or pray, he revives a third and much-neglected
means of honoring those to whom we owe an unpayable debt: cour-
teous deference. Sam Gamgee knows that Frodo Baggins is truly his
superior—and not only because Sam comes from peasant stock, as
his poor grammar, his fear of things foreign, and his social ineptitude
all indicate. Far more profoundly, Sam defers to Frodo because he
comprehends Frodo's moral excellence. For all these reasons, there-
fore, Sam always addresses him as "Mr. Frodo." He recognizes, with-
out fail, who is master and who is servant. Far from demeaning him,
Sam's attitude of courteous deference lifts him to his own distinctive
excellence. He becomes, in fact, the book's real hero.
So does Pippin, the youngest and smallest of the hobbits, find

himself strangely exalted by swearing loyalty to Denethor, the
unstable and untrustworthy steward of Gondor. Pippin knows that
he is not natively inclined to valor; on the contrary, he confesses
his own fear of warfare. Yet he also knows that Boromir,
Denethor's faulty son, had died courageously and sacrificially
while fighting the ores, thus saving him and Merry from sure cap-
ture. Thus does Pippin offer his service to the deceptive old
Denethor in a ceremony that echoes the marriage service in the
Book of Common Prayer.
Here do I swear fealty and service to Gondor, and to the Lord
and Steward of the realm, to speak and to be silent, to do and to
let be, to come and to go, in need or plenty, in peace or war, in
living or dying, from this hour henceforth, until my lord release
me, or death take me, or the world end. So say I, Peregrin son
of Paladin of the Shire of the Halflings. (3.28)
To be "courteous" is to comport oneself as if one were in the
court of a king or a queen. The language of courtesy is elevated
because it calls for elevated conduct. Knowing that Pippin is being
summoned to act in a magnanimous way, Gandalf refuses to chide
him for his heartfelt if also dangerous act: "generous deed should
not be checked by cold counsel" (3.32). Pippin finds, in fact, that
his deferential gesture has lifted him to a superior plane of respect:
"he could not be rid of his new rank, only fitting, men thought, to
one befriended by Boromir and honoured by the Lord Denethor;
and they thanked him for coming among them, and hung on his
words and stories of the outlands, and gave him as much food and
ale as he could wish" (3.40). The once-frightened hobbit acquits
himself exceedingly well at the Black Gate of Mordor, slaying the
terrible troll-chief even as he is himself almost killed. As he loses
consciousness, Pippin retains the amused insouciance that enabled
his original act of deference: " 'So it ends as I guessed it would,' his
thought said, even as it fluttered away; and it laughed a little within
him ere it fled, almost gay it seemed to be casting off all doubt and
care and fear" (3.169).
Courage: The Virtue That Issues in Endurance

If prudence and justice are virtues of the mind and spirit, courage
and temperance are virtues having to do with the body. Fortitude
is an approach to life that is explicitly linked with death.
"Courage," said G. K. Chesterton, "is almost a contradiction in
terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readi-
ness to die." In the pagan realm, courage is supremely manifested
when one dies in battle while defending a just cause. In the Chris-
tian world, it is a willingness to die as a martyr rather than deny-
ing Christ, or else to refuse to kill others only in order to preserve
one's own life. Even when courage does not require the shedding
of our blood, it always entails a refusal to love our lives so much
that we lose our souls. Courage refuses to commit sin because of
fear. It makes war against the brute power of evil with all the
strength of one's body and soul. As its name indicates, courage is
located at the center of our being, in the cor—the heart and its
intentions. We are called to courage in order to preserve our
integrity before others and in the presence of God: to keep our-
selves morally and spiritually intact.
Scripture is rife with calls to courage, whether in escaping
Egyptian bondage or in conquering the Promised Land. Many of
the Old Testament heroes are warriors such as Gideon. There is
also the venerable biblical tradition of righteous wrath and good
ire—the anger that despises the things that God despises. "Do I not
hate them that hate thee, O LORD?" cries the psalmist (139:21).
While the New Testament has no soldier saints, Jesus is no milque-
toast Lord. He acts with considerable vehemence in cleansing the
temple of the money changers and other commercializers. At the
same time, he strictly forbids his disciples to take up arms and
fight. On the contrary, Christ enjoins his followers to turn the other
cheek, to walk the second mile, to make friends with accusers,
even to pray for enemies. The life of spiritual courage rather than
martial bravery finds its most eloquent and profound expression in
Paul's exhortation to the church at Corinth:
We put no obstacle in any one's way, so that no fault may be
found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend
ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions,

hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors,
watching, hunger; by purity, knowledge, forbearance, kindness,
the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of
God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and
for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute.
We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and
yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and
yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet
making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing every-
thing. (2 Cor. 6:3-10)
Heroic and Supernal Courage

The Lord of the Rings is filled with so many instances of heroic
courage, some quite grim, that it is not necessary to catalogue
them. Suffice it to mention that Legolas and Gimli keep count of
the ores they have killed, as if they were engaged in a contest.
Aragorn climbs the walls of Helm's Deep and stands defiantly
alone against the ores, ordering them to be gone. At the same bat-
tle, the elderly King Theoden mounts a final desperate charge, not
letting death come to him in sickness and old age, but fighting
Saruman's forces until they kill him. Much less obvious than such
instances of traditional heroism is another kind of sacrifice that the
Company makes: the willingness to lay down their lives without
real hope of victory, especially at the end when there seems to be
no chance of defeating Sauron. Before the final battle at the Black
Gate of Mordor, Gandalf calls for an unprudential kind of courage.
"Prudence," he points out, "would counsel you to strengthen such
strong places as you have, and there await the onset. . . . I do not
counsel prudence," he adds. "I said victory could not be achieved
by arms. I still hope for victory, but not by arms" (3.154-55).
Rather does Gandalf summon the Company to a supernal kind
of surrender, a giving up of power in order to defeat Power. Hop-
ing that Sam and Frodo may have entered Mordor, and thus be mak-
ing their way toward Mount Doom, Gandalf urges his friends to
mount a direct assault on Sauron's fortress, Barad-dur. He knows
that the result is likely to be death and oblivion. Yet in sending his
ore and troll armies to crush the armies of the Free Peoples, Sauron
may fail to notice the presence of the Ring-bearer and his compan-
ion at the peak of Mount Doom:
We must push Sauron to his last throw. We must call out his hid-
den strength, so that he shall empty his land. We must march out
to meet him at once. We must make ourselves the bait, though
his jaws should close on us. He will take that bait, in hope and
in greed, for he will think that in such rashness he sees the pride
of the new Ringlord.... We must walk open-eyed into that trap,
with courage, but with small hope for ourselves. . . . But this, I
deem, is our duty. And better so than to perish nonetheless—as
we surely shall, if we sit here—and know as we die that no new
age shall be. (3.156)
Gandalf's call for the massed forces of the Free Peoples to
serve as sacrificial lambs has biblical rather than classical echoes.
Luke quotes Isaiah 53 to describe Christ as "a sheep led to the
slaughter" (Acts 8:32). Paul cites Psalm 44 in calling Christians
to retain confidence in God in even the worst of circumstances:
"For thy sake we are being killed all day long; we are regarded as
sheep to be slaughtered" (Rom. 8:36). And Jesus commissions his
disciples to a life that is sure to bring persecution and perhaps
death: "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves"
(Matt. 10:16).
The Danger of Fearlessness

Courage and fearlessness are not synonymous. Those who have
lost the will to live and who thus have no fear of death can hardly
be called courageous. "Courage," declared Mark Twain, "is resis-
tance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear." The suicidal
fearlessness of Talibanic terrorists does not exemplify courage;
their homicidal suicides are desperate bargains purchased in lust
for glory. At the height of the Roman persecutions, the early
church strictly forbade Christians from seeking their own martyr-
dom in the name of the Gospel. Whether among Christians or
pagans, the truly courageous have neither lust for death nor scorn
for life. There are many things that are rightly to be feared—
whether cancer or war, tornadoes or terrorists. Even Gandalf con-

fesses his fear of Sauronic evil. Supremely, of course, it is the
goodness and justice of God that is most greatly to be feared, for
in such fear lies the real beginning of wisdom (Ps. 111:10). It is
also the beginning of courage, as Josef Pieper makes clear:
If in this supreme test, in face of which the braggart falls silent
and every heroic gesture is paralyzed, a man walks straight up
to the cause of his fear and is not deterred from doing that which
is good; if, moreover, he does so for the sake of good—which
ultimately means for the sake of God, and therefore not from
ambition or from fear of being taken for a coward—this man,
and he alone, is truly brave. (127)
The Lord of the Rings contains two instances of the false brav-
ery that springs from false fearlessness. The first is found in
Eowyn's heroism at the battle of Pelennor Fields. Merry discerns
that she does not fight because she is convinced of the rightness of
her cause and the prospect of its ultimate victory. Eowyn is liter-
ally infuriated that she has been refused her rightful role as a war-
rior because she is a woman. Merry notes, all too sadly, that Eowyn
had "the face of one that goes seeking death, having no hope"
(3.116). There is no denying the heroism of her killing the Lord of
the Nazgul, but Tolkien quietly suggests that an embittered fear-
lessness is no real basis either for living or dying. Eowyn will
acquire true courage only when her rancor is transformed by her
love for Faramir.
Sam Gamgee also learns the difference between a spurious
fearlessness and true courage after he finds Frodo lying dead, as
he falsely assumes, outside Shelob's Lair. He debates with him-
self about three different courses: to take the Ring that hangs
from Frodo's neck and carry it to Mount Doom alone, to pursue
and kill Gollum in grim vengeance, or to join Frodo in death by
taking his own life: "He looked on the bright point of the sword.
He thought of the places behind where there was a black brink
and an empty fall into nothingness" (2.341). To join Frodo in
self-inflicted death would seem to be a sign of courage, but it
would in fact be an act of cowardice, since Sam's real calling is
to carry on the Quest. Sam chooses the first of these alternatives,

but then he gradually perceives that he is called to an even nobler
act of solidarity in suffering alongside his master. "Certainly the
Ring had grown greatly in power," Sam ruefully reflects, "as it
approached the places of its forging; but one thing it did not con-
fer, and that was courage" (2.344).
Courage in defense of one's slain lord was a high virtue in the
heroic world of the ancient North. To live after one's master had
died in battle was to live in shame. Yet Sam is no ancient hero. His
decision to remain with the seemingly dead Frodo does not come
as a deliberate choice so much as an unexpected gift. He no longer
ponders his options but acts as his character dictates, recognizing
that he cannot allow the ores to desecrate Frodo's body: "He flung
the Quest and all his decisions away, and fear and doubt with them.
He knew now where his place was and had been: at his master's
side, though what he could do there was not clear" (2.344). Though
Sam fails to find Frodo immediately, he discovers from the quar-
reling ores that his master is surprisingly alive, and that only in this
last act of returning to Frodo's body has he exhibited authentic
courage: "You fool, he isn't dead, and your heart knew it. Don't
trust your head, Samwise, it is not the best part of you. The trouble
with you is that you never really had any hope" (2.350).
Courage Transformed into Hopeful Endurance
The Company repeatedly exhibits the courage that springs from

hope because they have been schooled in endurance. It is a
courage-related virtue much prized by the ancient Stoics and fully
adopted by the early Christians. Yet there is a huge gap between
the two sorts of endurance. Stoics endure life both fearlessly and
tearlessly, convinced that things could not be other than they are,
and thus that true nobility of soul lies in taking on oneself the
unfeeling character of the universe without complaint. It is the
courage of the stiff upper lip and the unquivering chin. Christian
endurance is another thing altogether—precisely because it is
prompted by transcendent joy and hope. Only those disciples who
endure "to the end," declares Jesus, "will be saved" (Matt. 24:13;
Mark 13:13). The book of Hebrews affirms that "for the joy that
was set before him [Jesus] endured the cross, despising the
shame" (12:2). Paul's letters are full of enjoinders for Christians
to endure persecution, affliction, grief, chastenings, and the like.
The Pauline passage that bears most clearly on the endurance dis-
played by the Fellowship is found in the letter to the Romans: "we
rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces-
endurance, and endurance produces character, and character pro-
duces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love
has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has
been given to us" (5:3-5).
Tolkien does not violate the terms of his imaginative world by
making hobbitic endurance explicitly Christian. Quite to the con-
trary, the hobbits' endurance sometimes seems altogether stoical.
They are determined simply to slog ahead, to trudge forward no
matter what, to "see it through," as Sam says (2.341). So does Pip-
pin, thinking that he is about to be killed, declare simply, "I must
do my best" (3.168). This phrase might well serve as the leitmo-
tiv of Tolkien's entire epic, since it is for him the chief manifes-
tation of the natural grace that summons every human being to
moral effort. Tolkien often confessed his admiration for the non-
commissioned officers who performed their duty under the horrific
conditions of trench warfare during World War I. As Sam and
Frodo find themselves increasingly frustrated in their attempt to
ascend Mount Doom, there to cast the Ring into its fires, they seem
sure to fail; yet they are nonetheless determined to struggle for-
ward: "Still we shall have to try," said Frodo. "It's no worse than
I expected. I never hoped to get across. I can't see any hope of it
now. But I've still got to do the best I can" (3.201).
As they are following Gollum across the Dead Marshes toward
Mordor, Frodo urges his dear companion not to vex himself with
questions about what they will do when their errand is finished:
"Samwise Gamgee, my dear hobbit—indeed, Sam my dearest
hobbit, friend of friends—I do not think we need give thought to
what comes after that. To do the job as you put it—what hope is
there that we ever shall?" (2.231). Yet never does any member of
the Company turn back. They are driven by a profound sense of
duty that enables them "to do the job," to do their best, to endure
to the end, even to have "hope . . . against hope" (Rom. 4:18). Like
Abraham, albeit for quite different reasons, they have "patiently
endured" and thus obtain the promise (Heb. 6:15).
It is appropriate to cite such biblical passages because the
endurance of the Company is more often glad than grim. Though a
dark sense of doom hovers over the entire epic, it is often lightened
by the hobbits' recourse to poetry and song. "We seldom sing of
anything more terrible than wind and rain," declares Pippin. "And
most of my songs are about things that make us laugh; or about food
and drink, of course" (3.80). The hobbits are most unstoical in their
wonderfully self-deprecating sense of humor. Perhaps Sam is most
adept at mocking himself. Searching for Frodo in Shelob's Lair,
amid fearful darkness and dread, he urges himself forward with
comical commands: '"Come on, you miserable sluggard!' Sam
cried to himself (3.178). Gamgee makes his way into Sauron's
guard-tower of Cirith Ungol noisily rather than stealthily, as befits
his clumsy rotundity. When he sets off the alarms of the ores who
have mistaken him for an elf, Sam treats the whole matter comi-
cally: '"That's done it!' said Sam. 'Now I've rung the front door
bell! Well, come on somebody!' he cried. 'Tell Captain Shagrat that
the great Elf-warrior has called, with his elf-sword too!'" (3.179).
Occasionally, the hobbits laugh in order to cheer themselves
up—as they whistle not through the proverbial cemetery but in the
real darkness of Mordor. Usually, however, hobbit laughter has
deeper sources. Sometimes it springs from their delight in the won-
ders of the world, as when Sam and Frodo escape the Dead
Marshes and enter the flowering, fragrant realm of Ithilien: "Gol-
lum coughed and retched, but the hobbits breathed deep, and sud-
denly Sam laughed, for heart's ease, not for jest" (2.259). Most
often the hobbits laugh because they possess the freeing capacity
to stand outside themselves, to behold themselves at a critical dis-
tance, and thus not to take themselves too seriously. This freedom
comes most notably to Sam in the tower of Cirith Ungol, where he
thinks Frodo lies dead. Despite his despair, Sam finds himself
putting his own unaccountably hopeful words to one of the "old
childish tunes out of the Shire":
In western lands beneath the Sun

theflowersmay rise in Spring,
the trees may bud, the waters run,
the merryfinchessing.
Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night
and swaying beeches bear
the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair.
(3.185)
This enduringly joyful, even comic sense of life arises from the
Company's conviction that their errand constitutes a small action
within a gigantic cosmic drama. Though the machinations of evil
often cause them searing doubt, they believe that the victory of
good is ultimately assured, even if they may themselves fail and
soon be forgotten. If they are remembered at all, says Sam, it will
be a jovial recollection: '"Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring!'
And they'll say: 'Yes, that's one of my favourite stories. Frodo was
very brave, wasn't he, dad?' 'Yes, my boy, the famousest of the
hobbits, and that's saying a lot.'" " 'It's saying a lot too much,' said
Frodo, and he laughed a long clear laugh from his heart. Such a
sound had not been heard in those places since Sauron came to
Middle-earth" (2.321-22). This moment of transcendent joy
occurs just prior to their entering Shelob's caves, where Sam and
Frodo exhibit true courage and endurance yet again. Tolkien may
have had such moments in mind when he said that, at its best, fan-
tasy serves as "a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real
world" (MC, 155)—a distant reverberation of the Gospel.
Temperance: The Virtue That

Produces Cheerful Asceticism
Like the other cardinal virtues, temperance is easily misunder-
stood. It is often reduced to mere moderation, an avoidance of
extremes, a playing of the ends against the middle. This common-
sense definition of temperance is almost always tied to excesses
in eating, drinking, and having sex. Temperance deals, in fact,
with these things, but never in sour self-abasement or sanctimo-

nious scorn for the flesh. On the contrary, temperance seeks to cul-
tivate a right regard for our bodies and souls in their inseparable
integrity.
The New Testament links temperance with sobriety: "For the
grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men, training us
to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober,
upright, and godly lives in this world" (Titus 2:11-12). Temper-
ance concerns a positive discipline of precisely those activities
wherein the rightful urge to preserve and perpetuate ourselves—to
delight in the good pleasures of the good creation—is most insis-
tent. Exactly because the sensuous delights of life are divinely
ordained are they also exceedingly dangerous. They need to be
tempered: to be brought to their true quality, to be given their real
consistency. This may require a certain intensifying of the senses
rather than their mortification—so that practitioners of temperance
may have souls like tempered steel. Not to practice temperance,
says St. Augustine, is to indulge in a "servile liberty."
Christian tradition vigorously denies that our bodies are the real
cause of our sin. This is the Manichean heresy that Christians repu-
diate. Yet while the chief sins are spiritual rather than carnal, we
are still called to order the life of our fleshly senses. This ordering
may entail a radical asceticism, as in the case of St. Paul himself:
"Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to
receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Well, I do not
run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air; but I pommel my
body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should
be disqualified" (1 Cor. 9:25-27). Paul's logic is clear and com-
pelling. If athletes are willing to give up earthly pleasures for mere
earthly prizes, how much more ought Christians to renounce the
gratifications of physical desire for the sake of the Gospel and the
Kingdom—especially since we know the Holy to be infinitely
greater than even the finest human things? For Christians, in sum,
temperance is the discipline that enables our full participation in
the body of Christ by making Jesus the Lord of our bodies.
The earliest Christian teachings on temperance took their root
from the First Epistle of John, where the world (kosmos) is under-
stood as a metaphor of all that is alienated from God and has

enmity toward him. From the little epistle's brief listing of three
categories of sin, there gradually developed a full-fledged descrip-
tion and analysis of the various kinds of sins: "Do not love the
world or the things that are in the world. If any one loves the world,
love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust
of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of
the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the
lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever" (1 John
2:15-17). The three forms of concupiscence (the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life) are not to be restrained
for negative reasons alone—i.e., simply to keep them from getting
out of control. Rather are they to be tempered for the sake of a cer-
tain gladness and serenity of spirit. Only in godly detachment from
the world may the world's beauties and pleasures be enjoyed.
The Lust of the Flesh and the Self-Denial of Frodo and Sam
Concupiscentia is rendered all too inadequately as "lust," since our
modern word connotes little other than ravenous sexual appetite
and burning bodily desire. The older word suggests, far more sub-
tly, an inordinate love of worldly things, whether they be physical
or spiritual. Even when bodily cravings are satisfied wrongly, they
may be reordered in ways not necessarily ascetic. The sin of glut-
tony, for instance, does not afflict only the overweight. In an obese
culture where nearly everyone seeks to be slender—by way of con-
stant dieting and maniacal regimens of exercise—gluttony may
need to be redefined as an inordinate love of thinness. It may also
need to be overcome by the cultivation of an unfastidious esteem
for bodily heft. This latter-day gluttony is not a hobbitic temptation.
As we have seen, the hobbits have no skepticism about the plea-
sures of the senses—the delights of the palate least of all. Because
the hobbits are accustomed to enjoying six meals a day, Merry has
but a single pressing question after the harrowing victory at Pelen-
nor Fields: he wants to know when supper will be served!
As a deeply incarnational writer, Tolkien also understands the
asceticism that is intrinsic to authentic faith. To honor the flesh is
to discipline it. Jesus cannot rightly embark upon his ministry until
he has recapitulated Israel's long sojourn in self-denial by way of
his own wilderness encounter with demonic temptations of the
flesh. Sam wise Gamgee is the hobbit for whom such an ascetic life
proves most difficult. More than any of his companions, he is sus-
ceptible to an intemperate desire for food. Sam is a plump fellow
who relishes his victuals. Not only is he a culinary craftsman who
hates to give up his cooking gear; he also grieves at the prospect
of having no more well-prepared meals.
This most jovial and genial of hobbits is required, at the end, to
surrender far more valuable possessions than his utensils. In their
tortuous ascent up Mount Doom, he and Frodo are gradually
stripped of all their comforting accoutrements. They are both
humiliated by having to wear ore-gear in order to disguise them-
selves. Sam also gives up the elven cloak bestowed by Lady Gal-
adriel in order that the failing Frodo might be protected by it.
Eventually they abandon even their ore-gear and weapons. Yet the
greater Sam's relinquishment of his creaturely devices—even as
his body is wracked with hunger and thirst—the greater his moral
strength: "Sam's plain hobbit-face grew stern, almost grim, as the
will hardened in him, and he felt through all his limbs a thrill, as if
he was turning into some creature of stone or steel that neither
despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue"
(3.211). When Sam is at last forced to carry the virtually helpless
Frodo up the dread mountain, he becomes the central instrument
and eventual hero of the Quest.
In their hunger and thirst and drastic deprivation, and especially
in their virtual abandonment of all hope, the two hobbits traverse
something akin to Christ's own via dolorosa, his final path of sor-
row to Golgotha. Sam becomes almost a Christopher, a Christ-
bearer in his portage of Frodo up the mountain. Having abandoned
their mechanical defenses against evil, they also experience a vir-
tual noche oscura, the black night of the soul described by the
sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross. The dark
night comes when, stripped of all earthly and human supports, one
experiences the bracing strength of reliance on absolutely nothing
other than God. "In the measure that the soul walks in darkness and
emptiness in its natural operations," writes St. John, "it walks

securely." Tolkien offers no such overt theological analogy, of
course, but Frodo and Sam experience something akin to the
Christian mystery of finding their power in their utter weakness. It
is also fitting that in their trek up Mount Doom the two hobbits are
sustained by nothing else than their meager portion of lembas, the
Eucharist-like elven bread that leaves hunger frustrated but forti-
fies the will.
The Lust of the Eyes and Denethor's Defeatism

Concupiscence is not limited to the sins of the flesh. The eyes can
lust after other things than carnal pleasures. In fact, the lust of the
eyes has often been linked to an excessive desire for knowledge.
Adam and Eve are filled with this sort of visual lust in their desire
for the fruit of the forbidden tree, since it provides godlike knowl-
edge. The Faustian desire for omnicompetent knowledge has often
reigned as the besetting modern evil. For in our mastery of the
physical universe we have presumed to have moral mastery as
well. A variant of such lust for knowledge can be found in the
desire to know the future and thus to obtain certainty and security.
Those who despair of the ordinary assurances that are wrought by
hard moral effort are often prey to this second sort of eye-lust.
Hence the contemporary vogue for horoscopes, Bible-magic, and
the many astrologies and psycho-therapies that feed the cravings
of those who want to manage what lies ahead—the better to be rid
of the unexpected and the anxiety it prompts. For then there is no
need for radical reliance on God. Temperance of the eyes is thus a
discipline of the soul concerning knowledge, especially knowl-
edge of the future.
Such foresight is a dangerous thing not only for the small-
souled, but also for such gallant fellows as Sam and Frodo—as
they learn to their regret when they peer into the Mirror of Gal-
adriel. The lust for knowledge of a secure future becomes all the
more sinister in its effects on Denethor, the steward of Gondor.
He discerns the terrible decline that has befallen his people and
country, even as he also sees that the power of Mordor has been
immensely strengthened. He has already lost his son Boromir in

battle, and now his other son Faramir lies gravely ill, having
been wounded during the retreat from Osgiliath to Minas Tirith.
With good cause, it seems, Denethor perceives the future as
bleak beyond bearing. He voices a repeated lament that Tolkien
may have intended as a tempting dirge for our own culture and
time: "The West has failed." Tolkien agreed with Oswald Spen-
gler and many others that Western culture is caught in irrevoca-
ble decay and decline. We live in the twilight of a once-
splendorous civilization, and Denethor voices our lament, even
if anachronistically: "The West has failed. It shall all go up in a
great fire, and all shall be ended. Ash! Ash and smoke blown
away on the wind!" (3.128).
Denethor lacks the virtue of patience, the willingness to wait and
work and hope for a better day. He has been using one of the palan-
tir, thus enabling Sauron to give him many despairing visions of
what may happen. Thinking that there is no prospect for a bright
future, Denethor refuses to struggle for a gloomy but livable pre-
sent. Nor does he find any comfort in the news that Aragorn, the
rightful king of Gondor, is returning to ascend the throne. On the
contrary, he has long known and despised him. Yet Denethor is
ruined not only by his jealousy of Aragorn but also by his lustful
foresight of an unendurable future. In using the seeing-stone that
only a future king such as Aragorn is meant to employ, Denethor
has become a defeatist—indeed, an embittered reactionary:
"I would have things as they were in all the days of my life,"
answered Denethor, "and in the days of my longfathers before
me: to be the Lord of this City in peace, and leave my chair to a
son after me, who would be his own master and no wizard's
pupil. But if doom denies this to me, then I will have naught:
neither life diminished, nor love halved, nor honour abated."
(3.130)
Unlike the despairing King Theoden, who was roused from his
pessimism to help win the battle of Helm's Deep, Denethor refuses
to join the fray at Pelennor Fields. His lust for a noble future has
in fact maddened him. He has come to take his very nourishment
from the forethought of ruin, and thus to batten on his despair. If

Denethor cannot have a life as glorious as the one he once knew,
he will have none at all. He tries, alas, to prevent his wounded son
Faramir from facing a grim future by killing him and incinerating
his body. Prevented from this frightful act of filicide, Denethor
casts his own body on the funeral pyre in final suicidal despair.
Such are the appalling consequences, Tolkien makes clear, of an
intemperate imagination of the future, a refusal to have hope.
The Pride of Life, the Fear of Death,

and the Refusal of Compromise
The Johannine phrase "the pride of life" refers to the arrogant con-
viction of our own self-sufficiency, the presumption that our mor-
tal existence provides all that we need, the denial that there is
anything beyond the world which would require the tempering of
our earthly existence. The Ring overwhelms its victims by preying
on "the pride of life," since its bearer can go on living indefinitely
in apparent autonomy. According to the ancient tradition of the
elves, however, death is the enormously good gift that Iluvatar has
granted humankind. Even if men had not been marred by the
seductions of Melkor, they would presumably have died. But to
these unfallen creatures, death would have held no terror because
it would have been perceived as the blessed end of life. Men are
short-lived, according to elven-lore, because their existence has
been diminished by the seductions of Melkor and his minions.
There is considerable wisdom in the elven notion that death is
the gift of God. For fallen creatures to go on living endlessly would
be a terror to the world and a torment to themselves. We acquire
wisdom, moreover, only as we live in the expectation of death—
as we temper our bodily existence by not desiring falsely to pro-
long it. Life has its real urgency and point, Tolkien suggests,
because we live toward death. If we had no prospect of dying, we
would commit the two evils that undermine the good—pride and
despair: pride that we will always have time to do the things that
we ought to have done; despair that we will never cease doing the
things we ought not to have done. The creation is good, Tolkien
affirms, precisely because it is mortal. It becomes evil only when

we seek to deny its mortality, either by extending our lives unnat-
urally or else by wasting the time that has been accorded to us.
"All we have to decide," said Gandalf, "is what to do with the
time that is given us" (1.60). Far from being a carpe diem—a sum-
mons to seize the day for one's own self-abandoned indulgence—
Gandalf echoes the urgency that runs throughout the New
Testament. Repeatedly Christians are summoned not to squander
their days and hours, but to be diligent in the work of the Kingdom,
since "night comes, when no one can work" (John 9:4). Perhaps
Gandalf's aphorism concerning time has its real roots in Paul's
address to the Ephesians: "Look carefully then how you walk, not
as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because
the days are evil" (Eph. 5:15-16). If life were to stretch on end-
lessly—as the Ring enables it to do—it would lose its imperative
character, its urgency, its point.
The elves have not been given the benison of death; they are cre-
ated as immortal beings who will never have to die—at least not
until the final end of everything. Yet they have reason for growing
weary of their immortality. Some of the elves, lusting after the Sil-
marils stolen by Melkor, decided to pursue him. Thus did they
refuse to remain in Valinor, the Undying Lands that Iluvatar pre-
pared for them. And for this refusal they are punished with an ever-
diminishing importance, so that even Galadriel's elven-status will
fade once the Ring is destroyed.
Unlike the elves, men require temperance as the virtue that
overcomes the temptation to prolong life endlessly. Tolkien gives
us a brief glimpse of an entire civilization that succumbed to the
lust for unending life, as Faramir describes the sad decline of Gon-
dor because of its untempered fear of death. The Numenoreans had
once created the most excellent of kingdoms, but they are now "a
failing people." As with his father's vision of the West's decline,
so with Faramir's: it has a haunting contemporary currency. We
can detect our own condition in his declaration that the men of
Numenor have become "Middle Men, of the Twilight, but with
memory of other things ... fW]e now love war and valour as things
good in themselves, both a sport and an end" (2.287). Unlike
Denethor, however, Faramir discerns that the Men of Niimenor

brought their decay and dotage on themselves. In falling prey to
"the pride of life," they came to revere existence itself as the ulti-
mate good. Their worship of life and their fear of death led to a cul-
tural degeneration not unlike our own:
Death was ever present, because the Numenoreans ... hungered
after endless life unchanging. Kings made tombs more splendid
than houses of the living, and counted old names in the rolls of
their descent dearer than the names of sons. Childless lords sat
in aged halls musing on heraldry; in secret chambers withered
men compounded strong elixirs, or in high cold towers asked
questions of the stars. And the last king of the line of Anarion
had no heir. (2.286)
Those who refuse to temper "the pride of life" are tempted to
another kind of death—the kind that brooks no compromise. For
all that is admirable in the Ents, Tolkien reveals that they are
prone—perhaps because they are so long-lived—to a deadly suf-
ficiency. The Ents have become separated from the Entwives, and
there seems to be no prospect of their reunion. The problem is that
the masculine Ents are filled with wanderlust and vagabondage.
They do not want to be tied down but to roam in search of ever-
new things: "the Ents loved the great trees, and the wild woods,
and the slopes of the high hills; and they drank of the mountain-
streams, and ate only such fruit as the trees let fall in their path;
and they learned of the Elves and spoke with the Trees." The
Entwives, by contrast, are lovers of hearth and home, of fruits and
flowers and gardens that can be tended:
They did not desire to speak with [the wild apple and the green
herbs and the seeding grasses]...; but they wished them to hear
and obey what was said to them. The Entwives ordered [these
things] to grow according to their wishes, and bear leaf and fruit
to their liking; for the Entwives desired order, and plenty, and
peace (by which they meant that things should remain where
they set them). (2.79)
Tolkien here offers a touching parable of the essential differ-
ences that make for tensions between men and women, husbands
and wives. He is not suggesting that women have no spirit of

inquiry, nor that men are incapable of a settled life. Rather is he
demonstrating that our strengths, whatever they may be, always
need tempering. If Ents of both genders remain incapable of com-
promise—not learning to put aside "the pride of life" and to honor
the virtue of their opposites—they are literally doomed. There is
sadness about the Ents that derives not only from their longevity
but also from their solitude. They lack the cheerfulness of Sam
Gamgee's self-denial. Unless both the Ents and the Entwives can
temper their respective excellences, there will be no more Entings,
no little Ents.
For the two kinds of tree herds again to be reunited will require
far more than mere sexual mating. They will need to be reconciled.
But to speak of reconciliation is to mark the limits of the cardinal
virtues. Reconciliation requires more than the completion and per-
fection of even the most splendid moral qualities; it demands the
theological gifts of faith, hope, and love. It is to the Company's
embodiment of these three uniquely Christian virtues that we now
turn.
Chapter Four
The Lasting Corrective:

Tolkien's Vision of the Redeemed Life
i h e pre-Christian virtues that are common to many cultures can

be magnificently perfected by divine grace. Even so, they still
require a radical supplementation. There is a divine corrective that
at once transforms and redeems even the best human counter-
actions against evil, and it enters the world only with God's own
scandalous act of self-identification in Israel and Christ. The com-
mon way of specifying the uniquely Christian virtues is to cite
Paul's celebrated conclusion to 1 Corinthians 13: "So faith, hope,
love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." The three
theological virtues are not entirely distinct, of course, from the car-
dinal virtues—as if we were required to fulfill the four human
virtues before being allowed to embark on their three divine coun-
terparts! No aspect of human existence is devoid of God's grace;
indeed, every human good is rooted in the goodness of God.
All seven of the virtues are inseparably linked, so that to sever
one from the others is to do real violence to them all. We have dis-
covered, for example, that justice requires love and mercy for its
perfection, even as courage requires both faith and hope for its ful-
fillment. Yet the theological virtues also have their own unique
qualities. It is the aim of this penultimate chapter to describe the
specifically Christian character of the three theological virtues,
and to show how they find indirect expression in the life and quest
of the Company: faith in the trust that forms friendship, hope in the
vision of a future where Good will finally prevail, and love in the
117
forgiveness that is a human possibility only because it is first a

divine reality. Working together to complete and perfect the clas-
sical virtues, these new virtues enable us to "become partakers of
the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4).
Faith as Trust and Friendship
When St. Paul declares that "[h]e who through faith is righteous
shall live" (Rom. 1:17) and that "by grace you have been saved
through faith" (Eph. 2:8), he is not speaking of an abstract doctrine
that we are called to affirm as a bare intellectual proposition. To
have faith is not to credit a set of ideas that await either proof or
disproof. Certainly it is true that faith has real cognitive content—
namely, the articles of belief set forth in the various creeds and
confessions. Summarily stated, these statements of faith affirm
that the triune God has acted in Israel and Christ to create his
unique people called the church and, through it, to redeem the
world. Even so, faith is not the same thing as knowledge. Nor is
faith something that we are required morally to do—to perform
meritorious acts, for example, that win the favor of God. Surely
Christian faith issues in a distinctive way of life; indeed, it is a set
of habits and practices—of worship and devotion, of preaching
and the sacraments. Faith is always made active and complete in
good works, says the Epistle of James; in fact, "faith apart from
works is dead" (Jas. 2:22, 26). Yet faith is not first of all to be
understood as exemplary action.
At its root and core, faith is always an act of trust if it is to pos-
sess true knowledge and to produce true works. People having
simple minds and accomplishing small deeds can have profound
faith. Whether old or young, bright or dim, mighty or weak, we are
all called to be childlike before God. Faith is the total entrustment
of ourselves to the God who has trustworthily revealed himself in
Israel and Christ. It is the confidence that this true God will dis-
pose of our lives graciously, whereas we ourselves would make
wretchedly ill use of them. This means that faith entails a radical
risk, for God both commands and grants faith without offering any
The Lasting Corrective 119
material threat of punishment or earthly promise of reward. To be

sure, the life of disobedience incurs divine wrath, just as the life of
faith springs from divine mercy. The right relation between God's
anger and pity is defined in the fine phrase of Jeremy Taylor, a
seventeenth-century Anglican divine: "God threatens terrible
things if we will not be happy." To have faith is to have the life of
true felicity already within us, as we learn gladly to participate in
God's own trinitarian life of trusting self-surrender.
Because God's communal life centers upon the perfect and
unconditional self-giving of each person of the Trinity to the other,
so does the life of faith entail the complete offering of ourselves to
God and our neighbors. Such an astounding act could never be a
human achievement: it is a miraculous divine gift. There is noth-
ing within our human abilities that could produce faith. On the
contrary, it is our free and trusting response to the desire for God
that God himself has planted within us. God is utterly unlike
Melkor and Sauron because he never coerces. We are never forced
but always drawn to faith, as God grants us freedom from sin's
compulsion. We are invited and persuaded to this act of total
entrastment through the witness to the Gospel made by the church.
Even when faith is an act of knee-bent confession alone in one's
own room, it is not a solitary and individual and private thing: faith
is both enabled and sustained by the body of Christ called the
church, the community of God's own people.
The Human Call to Faith and Trust

This brief theological discourse on faith may seem to stand at a
very far remove from Tolkien. There is nothing overtly theologi-
cal about The Lord of the Rings. The hobbits do not speak of Ilu-
vatar, offer sacrifices to him, or worship him in any other way. Yet
it has been the central contention of this book that there are unmis-
takable parables and analogues of Christian faith present through-
out Tolkien's masterpiece. We will see that the hobbits repeatedly
find themselves performing acts of faith—entrusting themselves to
each other and to their own unproven convictions about the
Good—in ways that are attributable neither to human nor hobbitic
powers. These faithful acts form distinctive echoes, even if at a far

distance, of Christian faith.
The presence of the theological virtue of faith is made most
vivid in the repeated displays of trust that constitute the real life
of the Fellowship. Sometimes the hobbits are called to trust those
who, like Gandalf, have discomfiting wisdom and insight. Bilbo,
for example, finds it frightfully hard to surrender the Ring, so
fully has it come to possess him, even though he has promised to
give it up. When the old hobbit's eyes flash and harden with pro-
tective anger, Gandalf warns that he too can get furious. Yet Gan-
dalf's moral rage is less a threat of punishment than an appeal to
faith: "I am not trying to rob you, but to help you. I wish you
would trust me, as you used." When Bilbo confesses that he is so
torn between keeping and surrendering the Ring that he can't
make up his mind, Gandalf reiterates his plea: "Then trust mine,"
said Gandalf. "It is quite made up. Go away and leave it behind.
Stop possessing it. Give it to Frodo, and I will look after him"
(1.43). This straightforward command for Bilbo to act rightly by
trusting the faithful wizard breaks the spell that the Ring has
worked on Bilbo, as no moral intimidation could possibly have
done. Faith enables freedom.
Sam and Frodo are summoned to a similar faith when the fugi-
tive Aragorn—disguised as a man named Strider—makes his first
appearance at the inn of the Prancing Pony. The two hobbits have
already encountered the foul servants of Sauron in Bree, and they
thus have cause to wonder whether they can accept the uninviting
Strider's claim that he has been sent by Gandalf to give them aid.
Barliman Butterbur has absent mindedly failed to deliver Gan-
dalf's letter introducing Aragorn and containing its fine paradoxi-
cal hint: "All that is gold does not glitter, / Not all those who
wander are lost." There being no proof that Strider is in fact a king
under cloak, the hobbits discover that trust is a gift that mere evi-
dence cannot provide:
"The lesson in caution has been well learned," said Strider with
a grim smile. "But caution is one thing and wavering is another.
You will never get to Rivendell now on your own, and to trust
me is your only chance. You must make up your mind. I will

answer some of your questions, if that will help you to do so.
But why should you believe my story, if you do not trust me
already?" (1.178)
Fides quaerens intellectual (faith seeking understanding) and
Credo ut intelligam (I believe that I might understand) are ancient
Christian mottoes. Though focused on faith in God, they enable
us to grasp the right relation of faith and knowledge also in the
human sphere. Trust gives birth to wisdom and understanding, as
we discover in the hobbits' first encounter with Strider. Only
because Sam and Frodo could first put their unproven faith in
Strider could they then discover his true identity. Aragorn con-
fesses that he was indeed hoping for their trust, since it is the real
basis of friendship: "I must admit," he added with a queer laugh,
"that I hoped you would take me for my own sake. A hunted man
sometimes wearies of distrust and longs for friendship. But there,
I believe my looks are against me." Frodo admits that he had
found Strider's appearance to be forbidding, but that his intuitive
faith broke through the ugly surface to discern Aragorn's true
nobility. Frodo's faith enables him to penetrate the superficial and
to plumb real depths of character, as he confesses: "I think one of
[Sauron's] spies would—well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you
understand" (1.183).
The Faith to Petition and Receive Divine Aid

It is not only the steadfast wizard and the fugitive king whom the
hobbits learn to trust; they also come increasingly to put their faith
in the providentially ordered universe. The hobbits have faith that
the cosmos is not accidental and absurd, not random and chaotic.
Rather is their world layered and traversed with multiple and hier-
archical realities: divine, demonic, geological, zoological, botani-
cal, elvish, human, dwarvish, hobbitic, and so on. Tolkien thus
helps us to see that our own cosmos is also a huge interstitial web
of interlocking powers. Everything—absolutely everything—
deeply intersects and overlaps with everything else. To pluck even
a single small strand of this vast cosmic web is to make the whole
thing shimmer with endless rippling effects. Yet since most of the
cosmic powers are invisible, there is no proof that the world is not
a godless and malign realm—a mindless universe having neither
sponsorship nor direction.
The trail-blocking snowstorm that the Fellowship encounters
on Mount Caradhras, for instance, seems to provide hard counter-
evidence against a belief in providential order. It also disproves all
notions that Tolkien was a nature worshiper. It is clear that there is
a malevolent power at work in the natural order that has no link
with Sauron. Thus are the hobbits required repeatedly to have faith
in order to entrust themselves to Iluvatar's cosmos. They have no
sure knowledge or proof, but rather the risky confidence that Eru
sponsors and directs the world, even as he enacts his will in it by
means of such intermediary and intercessory agents as the unfallen
and invisible valar.
Frodo and Sam are especially devoted to Elbereth, the spouse
of Manwe who is also known to the elves as Gilthoniel. We have
noticed earlier that she is an angelic, mercy-bearing figure with
distinctive kinship to the Virgin Mary. The most remarkable fact
about the hobbits' occasional petition of her aid is that they often
invoke it unawares. This queen of the valar seems to be praying
through them as much as they are praying to her. To use the lan-
guage of the New Testament, it is as if—the hobbits being unable
to pray as they ought—the Spirit were interceding for them (Rom.
8:26). When Frodo is trapped by the Barrow-wights, for example,
he assumes that he has met his final end. Rather than giving up, he
is angered by the wights' attack. Tolkien repeatedly resorts to the
passive voice to indicate that Frodo is being graciously acted upon,
even as he himself courageously acts: "He found himself stiffen-
ing" (1.151). Again when the arm of the wight draws near in the
dark, Frodo discovers that "suddenly resolve hardened in him"
(1.153). Unaccountably, Frodo recalls the rhyme that he had ear-
lier learned from Tom Bombadil. Singing the verse with surpris-
ing strength—quite beyond anything he should be able to muster
in his weakened condition—Frodo summons Tom to the rescue.
The synergism of the holy and the human—as the divine and the
hobbitic prove to be complementary rather than contradictory—is
disclosed most plainly when Frodo first encounters the Ring-

wraiths. He finds himself unable to resist the inexorable urge to put
on the Ring, exposing himself to the wraiths' demonic assault.
With Frodo thus found out, the Witch-king bears down on the hob-
bit, dealing him a nearly mortal wound. Yet Frodo is saved by a
surprising collusion of benign forces. Strider arrives waving a
flaming brand to frighten away the light-hating wraiths, even as
Frodo exerts his utmost will, both to fight the enemy and to take
off the Ring. These mighty efforts succeed, however, only because
another power is at work in Frodo's abject, almost unconscious
petition: "At that moment [as the Witch-king was ready to strike
the death blow] Frodo threw himself forward on the ground, and
he heard himself crying aloud: O Elbereth! GilthonieU" (1.208).
Rather than deciding to pray, Frodo discovers himself praying. As
Frodo recovers from the dread blow struck by the Witch-king,
Strider remarks that it was not Frodo's superb swordsmanship that
really counted, since all blades perish when they pierce the lord of
the Ringwraiths. "More deadly to him," Strider observes, "was the
name of Elbereth" (1.210). This is far from the last occasion
wherein the hobbits will entrust themselves to Elbereth's mercies.
Without her aid the Quest could not have succeeded.
Because the immortal elves partake of the divine nature more
fully than either hobbits or men, Galadriel the elven-queen also pos-
sesses intercessory powers. Her several gifts to the Company—the
elven cloaks, the phial of light-giving water, the brooches that enable
Merry and Pippin's rescue—all serve as more than mortal aids to the
Quest. Galadriel also supplies the Company, far more mysteriously,
with unconscious help as well. It is given almost comically when
Sam is forced to surrender his elven rope as he and Frodo are mak-
ing their way over the harsh ridges of Emyn Muil. Sam had tied the
rope to a stump in order that he and Frodo might lower themselves
down a steep cliff. There is no way, unfortunately, of untying and
retrieving the rope. Sam's irritation at leaving it behind brings him
as close to cursing as this guileless soul ever gets:
"Ninnyhammers!" he said. "Noodles! My beautiful rope! There

it is tied to a stump, and we're at the bottom. . . . I don't like
leaving it, and that's a fact." He stroked the rope's end and
shook it gently. "It goes hard parting with anything I brought out
of the Elf-country. Made by Galadriel herself, too, maybe. Gal-
adriel," he murmured, nodding his head mournfully. He looked
up and gave one last pull to the rope as if in farewell.
To the complete surprise of both the hobbits it came loose.
(2.217)
A freak accident? A badly tied knot which, if it had given way
sooner, could have spelled death? Sam knows better: "I think the
rope came off itself—when I called" (2.218). The very utterance
of Galadriel's name served to invoke her divine power, however
little Sam intended to do so. Just as the name of Lord God must
not be taken in vain—lest he fearfully perform what we lightly
petition—so is it happily true with Tolkien's gracious intermedi-
aries as well. To call upon Galadriel, even unawares, is for her to
answer.
Sam's devotion to Galadriel is mystical and Marian, as Tolkien
himself confessed. Gamgee hymns the beauty of the elven-
princess as something verily divine—not because Galadriel is cud-
dly and comforting, but because her beauty is fierce and bracing.
Galadriel turns Sam into a poet almost in spite of himself, as
Tolkien reveals how extravagant faith in an object of worthy ven-
eration elevates the soul of an unpretentious peasant such as Sam-
wise Gamgee. Hence his paean of praise to his elven-lady:
"The Lady of Lorien! Galadriel!" cried Sam. "You should see
her, indeed you should, sir. I am only a hobbit, and gardening's
my job at home, sir, if you understand me, and I'm not much
good at poetry—not at making it: a bit of comic rhyme, perhaps,
now and again, you know, but not real poetry—so I can't tell
you what I mean. It ought to be sung But I wish I could make
a song about her. Beautiful she is, sir! Lovely! Sometimes like
a great tree in flower, sometimes like a white daffadownlilly,
small and slender like. Hard as di'monds, soft as moonlight.
Warm as sunlight, cold as frost in the stars. Proud and far-off as
a snow-mountain, and as merry as any lass I ever saw with
daisies in her hair in springtime. But that's all a lot o' nonsense,
and all wide of my mark."
"Then she must be lovely indeed," said Faramir. "Perilously

fair."
". . . [P]erhaps you could call her perilous [Sam replies],
because she's so strong in herself. You, you could dash yourself
to pieces on her, like a ship on a rock; or drownd yourself, like
a hobbit in a river. But neither rock nor river would be to
blame." (2.288)
Galadriel bears a certain likeness to the Virgin Mary as Dante
depicts her in the Inferno. The Blessed Maria beseeches the heav-
enly spirit of Beatrice Portinari, Dante's old flame, to descend
from Paradise to Hell, there to persuade Virgil to rescue the way-
ward Dante from the damnable life that he is falling into. Here
Galadriel acts without such entreaty, for she has the transcendent
capacity to discern the Company's yearning as well as its need.
Their faith in her leads her to protect them. Prior to the battle of
Pelennor Fields, when the armies of the Free Peoples seem sure
to be overwhelmed by Sauron's hugely superior forces, suddenly
the fearsome Dunedain—the mighty Men of the North—appear.
Gimli assumes that Gandalf has sent for these warriors by direct
word of mouth, until Legolas reminds him that the invisible
elven-lady is at work:
"Nay, Galadriel," said Legolas. "Did she not speak through
Gandalf of the ride of the Grey Company from the North?"
"Yes, you have it," said Gimli. "The Lady of the Wood! She
read many hearts and desires." (3.49)
The Faith That Produces Friendship

The members of the Fellowship of the Ring, though they know
nothing of the Greeks, are agreed with Aristotle's claim that friend-
ship is the excellence which is "most indispensable for life." It is
literally their sine qua non: without it they would be nothing. Their
friendship is the one thing that unites them at the beginning, sus-
tains them throughout their long ordeal, and enables the success of
their Quest at the end. Friendship is surely the chief virtue of the
Company. Yet because friendship is a preferential love—extended
only to a few rather than to all—it has sometimes been denigrated
as a sub-Christian virtue. Such castigation would be deserved only

if—whether in the Company's case or our own—it led to an exclu-
sive society of self-declared "worthy souls." The Fellowship of the
Nine Walkers, quite to the contrary, is a frail and often broken com-
munity whose real bond lies in their forgiving faith and enduring
trust in each other.
Friendship is born of the wondrous discovery that someone
else possesses our most fundamental interests and commitments.
There are evil companies, of course, formed by those who have
criminal things in common. Yet, as we have discovered, there is
no true community of vice, however rigidly loyal its members
may be. Whether in the Taliban or the Mafia or the street gangs,
their dedication to evil ends makes their singleness of spirit suf-
focating from within and contemptible from without. At its best,
friendship constitutes a community of virtue—a fellowship of
shared aims and aspirations for the Good. Unlike those who
belong to a clique or in-group, friends are eager to share their
common loves and enterprises with others. There is no desire to
exclude outsiders who want to participate in the shared cultiva-
tion of the good thing that already-established friends have in
common. As C. S. Lewis wisely remarks in The Four Loves,
friendship is the one love that is not diminished when it is
divided.
The Fellowship has its comic beginning in Sam's friendship
with Frodo. Gamgee the eavesdropper overhears Gandalf telling
Frodo that he must take the Ring and leave the Shire. Gandalf also
urges Frodo not to make his journey alone: "Not if you know of
anyone you can trust, and who would be willing to go by your
side—and that you would be willing to take into unknown perils"
(1.72). Having pretended to be trimming the hedge outside the
window of Bag End, Sam is so overwhelmed at the thought of
Frodo's leaving him that he chokes with emotion. In so small a
thing as the tears of a mere gardener is so great a thing as the Fel-
lowship initially formed. Sam fulfills, far beyond all measure, the
command of Gandalf that, for the Quest, Frodo should choose a
companion whom he can trust. So do Merry and Pippin, the young
hobbits who insist on accompanying Frodo; they exhibit this same
splendid quality of trusting friendship. Merry voices the matter

simply though profoundly:
You can trust us to stick with you through thick and thin—to the
bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours—
closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let
you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your
friends, Frodo. (1.115-16)
With those last five words, had Sauron heard and fathomed them,
his mighty fortress at Barad-dur would have been shaken to its
foundations.
Noble as their friendship surely is, it will never depend on
heroic deeds alone. The Fellowship will also be sustained by acts
that are wonderfully comic and only inadvertently heroic. Chasing
the fleeing Frodo after Boromir attempts to seize the Ring, bum-
bling Sam misses Frodo's departing boat by several feet. As he
falls into the river and nearly drowns, Gamgee all the while
exclaims, "Coming, Mr. Frodo! Coming!" Sam may be clumsy
and comical and inept, but his loyalty to Frodo defines the real
character of the Company:
"Of all the confounded nuisances you are the worst, Sam!"
[Frodo] said.
"Oh, Mr. Frodo, that's hard!" said Sam shivering. "That's
hard, trying to go without me and all. If I hadn't a guessed right,
where would you be now?"
"Safely on my way."
"Safely!" said Sam. "All alone and without me to help you?
I couldn't have a borne it, it'd have been the death of me."
"It would be the death of you to come with me, Sam," said
Frodo, "and I couldn't have borne that." (1.422)
The Nine Walkers are chosen by Elrond as Middle-earth's
answer to the Nine Riders of Sauron—the nine mortal men who,
wearing the rings that Sauron made for them, have come totally
under his power and thus have been turned into the fearsome Ring-
wraiths. But while the Nine Riders have been made into vaporous
shadows of sameness, the Nine Walkers are a remarkably diverse
assemblage of the unlike. They represent all of the Free Peoples of
Middle-earth, and they are not united by race or language or class,

but solely by their friendship: their abiding love for each other and
their common devotion to the Good as it is embodied in the Quest.
Together, these two things give them an immense moral freedom,
and thus an immense power against Sauron, the Ringwraiths, and
all the other enemies of such freedom.
Elrond chooses these radically disparate souls according to the
unique strengths they bring to their singular task. Their unity in
drastic unlikeness makes the Fellowship a startling analogue of
what the New Testament calls "one body and one Spirit, . . . one
hope . . . one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of
us all" (Eph. 4:4-6). Gandalf is chosen for his wisdom, Aragorn
because of his ancestral link to the Ring, Boromir for his valor,
Legolas for his elvish mastery of the woods, Gimli for his
dwarvish knowledge of mountains and mines, and Sam because he
is Frodo's closest companion. Merry and Pippin are selected,
despite their youthful inexperience, because they are eager to fol-
low Frodo. When Elrond objects that these youngsters have no
ability to imagine the terrors that lie ahead, Gandalf reminds him
that they possess a more important quality: "It is true that if these
hobbits understood the danger, they would not dare go. But they
would still wish to go, or wish that they dared, and be shamed and
unhappy. I think, Elrond, that in this matter it would be well to trust
rather to their friendship than to great wisdom" (1.289).
The four hobbits are already friends, but the other five mem-
bers of the Company soon join them in an unbreakable circle of
faith and trust and solidarity. They are united by their common
purpose, by their loyalty to Gandalf as their guide, by their hatred
of Sauron and all his pomps, by their desire to preserve Middle-
earth from destruction and, increasingly, by their mutual sacrifice
and suffering. These qualities are not uniquely Christian, of
course, but have their parallels in pagan societies as well. It has
often been noted that, under the actual conditions of war, few sol-
diers fight for such an abstract and distant good as their nation or
people, but rather for the concrete and immediate good of their
soldier friends.
Tolkien adds one distinctive quality to the faith that binds the
Fellowship, and this makes it deeply analogous to the life of

authentic Christian community. In the heroic world of the ancient
North, warriors were made to swear absolute fealty, even on pain
of death, against betrayal of their common cause. The Company,
by contrast, is not required to take an oath. Perhaps Tolkien here
echoes Christ's own prohibition against oath-swearing (Matt.
5:33-35). Whether with hobbits or humans, oaths often bind rather
than free the will, allowing room for neither failure nor forgive-
ness. The Fellowship depends on the liberating faith and grace of
friendship, not on the forced loyalty of oaths:
"This is my last word," [Elrond] said in a low voice. "The Ring-
bearer is setting out on the Quest of Mount Doom. On him alone
is any charge laid: neither to cast away the Ring, nor to deliver
it to any servant of the Enemy nor indeed to let any handle it,
save members of the Company and the Council, and only then
in gravest need. The others go with him as free companions, to
help him on his way. You may tarry, or come back, or turn aside
into other paths, as chance allows. The further you go, the less
easy will it be to withdraw; yet no oath or bond is laid on you to
go further than you will. For you do not yet know the strength
of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet
upon the road." (1.294)
The solidarity of the Company is first evidenced as they are
entering Lothlorien. Because dwarves and elves have been historic
enemies, the guardian Haldir demands that Gimli be blindfolded
before entering the elven-realm. Gimli defends his innocence,
pointing out that he has never served Sauron nor done any harm to
elves. It is Aragorn, however, who makes the salient point. The
question is not whether Gimli is an enemy of elves, Aragorn
argues, but whether the Nine Walkers really constitute a Fellow-
ship. Either they shall all enter Lorien blindfolded, Aragorn insists,
or else none of them shall be hindered (1.362).
St. Paul speaks very much in Elrond's fashion when he empha-
sizes the unity of all members of Christ's body. Each person—no
matter how small or "inferior"—is essential for the solidarity of
the whole: "If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one mem-
ber is honored, all rejoice together" (1 Cor. 12:26). There are few
evils that do more harm to the Gospel than the division of Chris-
tians against each other. Haldir confesses the hard truth about
schisms, whether churchly or hobbitic, when he admits that his ini-
tial suspicion of Gimli was prompted by the enmity that Sauron
himself has sown: "Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark
Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all
those who still oppose him" (1.362). Knowing the true identity and
purpose of the Company, Galadriel permits them all alike to enter
freely.
Surely the most remarkable friendship within the Company
itself is the one that develops between Gimli and Legolas.
Dwarves and elves have little in common. While dwarves delve
deep into the innards of the earth, elves are masters of trees and
woods. Yet this racial divide does not hinder the regard that Gimli
and Legolas come to have for each other. Perhaps angered at
Gimli's having been denied an open-eyed entrance to Lorien,
Legolas befriends the dwarf there in the elven- world. Their friend-
ship is further strengthened at the battle of Helm's Deep. After the
final fight before the Black Gate of Mordor, the elf and dwarf
renew their vow never to let their companionship be broken. Thus
does Gimli promise to journey with Legolas to the Forest of
Fangorn, there to behold the wonders of this fairest of elven places;
just as Legolas pledges to accompany Gimli to the caves beneath
Helm's Deep, there to enjoy the glories of the dwarf mines.
In appendix A of The Lord of the Rings, we learn something
even more wondrous about the friendship of Gimli and Legolas.
After spending much time and labor rebuilding ruined Gondor, and
after viewing the wonders of Middle-earth together, they were
both allowed to sail over the sea to Valinor (3.362). Their friend-
ship made their parting so unbearable that Galadriel seems to have
interceded with the valar on Gimli's behalf. He thus becomes the
only dwarf ever to have entered the Undying Lands. Yet this is no
unvarnished reward for Gimli. He must forgo a long and glorious
rest with his ancestors. Yet Gimli gladly makes this sacrifice in
order to remain, until the end of Time, with his best friend as well
as the Lady whom he cherishes above all the precious metals that
he has quarried and refined.
The Dangers of Suspicion and the Spoiling of Friendship
Galadriel predicts that the Fellowship, being a body of true friends,

will enlarge its periphery by meeting unexpected friends along
their journey. And indeed it does: Bombadil and Treebeard, Theo-
den and Erestor, Eomer and Eowyn are but the most obvious exam-
ples. Yet while friendship may bring forth wonders, it can also
create disasters. Friendship loses its virtue when others are not
welcomed into its circle—when its preferential love produces a
clique or in-group. The Company would not seem to be afflicted
with a partisan denial of friendship to others but, in one notable
instance, it is.
Gandalf taught Frodo to forgive the utterly undeserving Gol-
lum, even as Bilbo had done. And once Frodo saw the pathetically
shriveled and twisted figure, he gladly granted him mercy. As him-
self a bearer of the Ring for only a short time, Frodo understands
how hideous was the pressure that bore down on Gollum for all the
years that he possessed it. Frodo knows that, unless he resists
relentlessly, he will become his own version of Gollum. Thus does
Frodo come gradually but increasingly to trust him. Frodo does not
extend Gollum the faith that comes with full friendship, of course.
For in his mad desire to reclaim the Ring, Gollum is eminently
untrustworthy. Frodo insists that, when he is sleeping, Sam must
keep an eye on the treacherous hobbit. Even so, Frodo has a
strange respect for Gollum. He discerns, in a deeply intuitive way,
that Gollum is divinely destined to play his crucial role in the saga
of the Ring. Far more importantly, Frodo believes that Gollum is
not fixed in evil, but that he has the capacity to overcome the addic-
tive effects of the Ring. He wants, therefore, to extend at least min-
imal friendship to this miserable fellow hobbit. There is a tiny ray
of light peeking into the prison cell of Gollum's life, making him
long to leave his wretched isolation and to find companionship
with another creature of his own kind.
Sam's moral imagination is far too limited to discern Gollum's
desire, and this blinkered failure of faith also marks Sam's real fail-
ure in friendship. Sam's problem springs, at least in part, from his
hyper-cautious peasant mentality. His simple mind is accustomed
to dealing in moral simplicities rather than complexities: every-

thing is either good or bad, and Gollum is bad. This judgment is
largely true, of course. Nowhere does Tolkien suggest that Gollum
has anything other than a corrupt character. Even so, it is evident
that Sam is determined not to find even a sliver of good in Gollum.
He treats him with utter contempt, repeatedly calling him a "nasty
treacherous creature" (2.224), and giving him multiple unsavory
names: "Slinker" and "Stinker" and "Sneak." Sam's revulsion for
Gollum—his cold scorn rather than his hot hatred—is evident from
the moment Sam first spies him at the edge of the Dead Marshes:
[Gollum's] large head on its scrawny neck was lolling from side
to side as if he was listening. His pale eyes were half unlidded.
Sam restrained himself, though his fingers were twitching.
[Sam's] eyes, filled with anger and disgust, were fixed on the
wretched creature as he now began to move again, still whis-
pering and hissing to himself. (2.220)
Tolkien's narrator calls the untrustworthy hobbit a "wretched crea-

ture." Frodo employs the same sympathetic epithet to describe
Gollum: "If we kill him, we must kill him outright. But we can't
do that, not as things are. Poor wretch! He has done us no harm"
(2.221).
Perhaps because Frodo treats him in a civil and polite fashion,
Gollum begins to recover his freedom, his Smeagol self. Frodo
calls forth Gollum's best traits by refusing to focus on his worst
ones. Tolkien thus echoes what, in his Confessions, St. Augustine
says about God's own love for him: "In loving me, You made me
lovable." In response to Frodo's faith in him, Gollum begins to
speak in the first person singular, and he swears never to let Sauron
have the Ring—a promise that, in fact, he never breaks. Frodo is
able to engage Gollum sympathetically because they share the
same experience of the Ring's burden. Oddly and profoundly, it is
their suffering that prompts their potential communion: "the two
were in some way akin and not alien: they could reach one
another's minds" (2.225).
Frodo's kind desire to enter Gollum's inner life is totally alien
to Sam. He would be much happier if Gollum remained wholly
evil: "[Sam] suspected him more deeply than ever, and if possible
liked the new Gollum, the Smeagol, less than the old" (2.225). The
narrator is candid about the sinister effects of Sam's blindness
toward Gollum: "Sam's mind was occupied mostly with his mas-
ter, hardly noticing the dark cloud that had fallen on his own heart"
(2.238). Sam is intensely jealous of any rivals to Frodo's friend-
ship. As Frodo's boon companion, he wants his master to have no
other. Thus does Sam seek to shrink the circle of intimate com-
munity to the smallest possible circumference. This is the spoiling
of faithful friendship.
Frodo is not deluded that Gollum has somehow suddenly
become virtuous, but he nonetheless decides to put his faith in Gol-
lum to lead them into Mordor rather than thinking only evil of him:
"I will trust you once more. Indeed it seems that I must do so, and
that it is my fate to receive help from you, where I least looked for
it, and [it is] your fate to help me whom you long pursued with evil
purpose" (2.248). Again at the Forbidden Pool, when Faramir and
Samwise would have killed Gollum for his deadly trespass, Frodo
rescues him. That he must resort to trickery to persuade Gollum to
leave the pool is a considerable grief to Frodo. He despises using
treachery even against the treacherous. Frodo thus rejects
Faramir's insistence that he should not trust Gollum to show them
the path to Mordor. Even the faithless should be shown faith: "I
have promised many times to take [Gollum] under my protection
and to go where he led. You would not ask me to break faith with
him?" (2.301)
Sam is quite glad to break faith with Gollum—convinced as he
is that Gollum should never be trusted. But as Gamgee's moral dis-
cernment deepens, he discovers that Gollum is a morally complex
creature. As Sam puts it, Gollum is both Stinker (rotten with desire
for the Ring) and Slinker (stealthy in his movements and motives).
Gollum's conflicted nature becomes especially evident in his fierce
inner debates concerning his temptation to seize the Ring from
Frodo. In the first of these interior arguments, he resists the lure of
the Ring, as if the power of good were gradually winning out. In
the second and last one, Gollum finds both Sam and Frodo asleep.
It is an apt occasion for Gollum to work his malice and greed.
Instead, he approaches Frodo with an apparent desire for commu-

nion. He seems to understand that Frodo has trusted him again and
again—not out of mere necessity, but in a desire for friendship.
Describing the scene from a transcendent perspective, the narrator
treats Gollum with remarkable tenderness:
[SJlowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously [Gol-
lum] touched Frodo's knee—but almost the touch was a caress.
For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him,
they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit,
shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time,
beyond fields and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an
old starved pitiable thing. (2.324)
In a moment of exceeding ill fortune, Frodo stirs in his sleep—

perhaps responding to a nightmare—at the very moment Gollum
touches him. His cry in turn awakens the much-alarmed Sam, who
immediately suspects the worst of Gollum, calling him "you old
villain." Once Sam sees that Gollum meant Frodo no harm, he
apologizes for having wrongly accused him. But it is too late. Gol-
lum uses Sam's taunt as an excuse to return to his old self: "Almost
spider-like he looked now, crouched back on his bent limbs, with
his protruding eyes. The fleeting moment had passed, beyond
recall" (2.324). Tolkien confessed that this inopportune turn of
events saddened him immensely—as Gollum comes ever so close
to a healing of his riven soul, only to be balked by Frodo's sudden
awakening and Sam's sharp rebuke (L, 110).
Yet Tolkien's lament may have also been pointed at Sam. For
in his jealous refusal to extend even the most minimal friendship
to Gollum, Gamgee has given him ample pretext for suppress-
ing his free Smeagol self and for returning to his enslaved con-
dition as Gollum. At the end, when it is again too late, Sam does
forgive Gollum. Even so, the lesson has been well learned: to
expect evil of others, Tolkien suggests in accord with Scripture,
is to call out their worst rather than their best selves. Hence the
constant biblical command not to think well of oneself and ill of
one's fellows, but to accord them generosity and goodwill. A
right estimate of others, according to St. Paul, can be obtained
only by regarding them no longer from a human point of view,

but rather by beholding them as creatures for whom Christ has
died (2 Cor. 5:16).
No such recourse, we hardly need to observe, is possible to any
of Tolkien's characters. Thus must our judgment of Sam remain
within the limits of his own moral and spiritual world. Sam
redeems much of what he has lost in his distrust of Gollum by his
unfailing loyalty to Frodo. He befriends Frodo in nearly every pos-
sible way. And at the end, he virtually surrenders his own life in
Frodo's behalf. Though himself weak and weary from the many
vicissitudes of their journey, Sam finds himself surprisingly able
to carry Frodo the last miles up Mount Doom: "Sam lifted Frodo
with no more difficulty than if he were carrying a hobbit-child
pig-a-back in some romp on the lawns or hayfields of the Shire"
(3.218). The narrator admits that Frodo has been rendered light by
his wasting wounds and sorrows, but another paradox is also at
work: when doing the most difficult things for the sake of the
Good, they become astonishingly effortless. "My yoke is easy, and
my burden is light" (Matt. 11:30).
Nor is Tolkien squeamish about having Sam express his love for
Frodo physically, as he kisses Frodo's hands, holds the sleeping
Frodo's head in his lap, and places his own hand on the somnolent
Frodo's breast. Whether in ancient hyper-masculine cultures or
modern homoerotic cultures, such gestures are suspect. Not for
Tolkien. Instead, he depicts Sam and Frodo's friendship as a thing
of exquisite beauty, even holiness. The most poignant account of
their philia is found in the fair land of Ithilien, where they have
come after having been turned away at the Black Gate of Mordor.
Sam beholds the sleeping Frodo as a friend whose worth is beyond
all estimate:
He was reminded suddenly of Frodo as he had lain, asleep in the
house of Elrond, after his deadly wound. Then as he had kept
watch Sam had noticed that at times a light seemed to be shin-
ing faintly within; but now the light was even clearer and
stronger. Frodo's face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care
had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chisel-
ing of the shaping years was now revealed in many fine lines
that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was
not changed. Not that Sam Gamgee put it that way to himself.
He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured:
"I love him. He's like that, and sometimes it shines through,
somehow. But I love him, whether or no." (2.260)
These sentiments, felt and spoken at the edge of Mordor, reveal
the ultimate distance between the Fellowship and their enemies.
None of Sauron's slaves can be imagined as ever uttering such a
simple sentence as "I love him." Sam and Frodo give incarnate life
to what the Old Testament means when it describes a friend as a
person "who is as your own soul" (Deut. 13:6). Their mutual
regard is also akin to the friendship of Jonathan and David: "the
soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved
him as his own soul" (1 Sam. 18:1). So is their bond like that
between the veteran missionary and his younger colleague: "I
thank God . . . when I remember you constantly in my prayers. As
I remember your tears, I long night and day to see you, that I may
be filled with joy" (2 Tim. 1:3-4).
Together with all the other members of the Company, Sam has
fulfilled the command of the Christ whom he knows not: "Greater
love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
friends" (John 15:13). Sam's faith in Frodo results in a friendship
like few others in ancient or modern literature. Though Sam sees
himself as Frodo's servant above all else, he would understand—
at least by the end—what Frodo would mean if he were thus to
address the Fellowship: "No longer do I call you servants . . . but
I have called you friends" (John 15:15). Faithful friendship within
the Company measures the chasm between the two worlds that The
Lord of the Rings sets in startling opposition: the world of life and
the world of death.
Hope in a Future That Is Permanently Good
Tolkien is candid about the bleak character of pagan heroism: it is

literally hopeless. Speaking of the Anglo-Saxon world of Beowulf,
he confessed that "those days were heathen—heathen, noble, and
hopeless" (MC, 22). They were hopeless because not even the
gods could overcome the powers of Chaos and Unreason. Beowulf
and his allies struggled with absolutely no hope of winning in the
end, even if they were temporarily to defeat the monsters. Even if
they were victorious and won the glory that they sought, their final
destruction could not be averted. Yet this defeat was no refutation
of their cause. On the contrary, their highest vindication lay in
standing up to the fiends, knowing well that they could be
devoured by them and that, even if not, their own extinction was
still sure.
A kindred hopelessness makes its way into The Lord of the
Rings. After Gandalf has been slain by the Balrog, for example,
Aragorn voices the grim situation of the whole Company: "We
must do without hope," he said. "At least we may yet be avenged.
Let us gird ourselves and weep no more! Come! We have a long
road, and much to do" (1.347). When Aragorn departs for the Paths
of the Dead, seeking to rouse the disembodied spirits of the
Shadow Host to battle the Corsairs of Umbar, there is little expec-
tation that he might succeed. Again when the combined armies of
the Free Peoples make their assault on the Black Gate of Mordor,
they have no hope whatsoever that they will win. Yet it is Frodo
himself who is most often overwhelmed by hopelessness. As the
Ring continues to work its sinister pressures on him, he feels
increasingly helpless to resist it. Hence Sam's despairing confes-
sion as he debates with himself about their prospects:
It's all quite useless... . You are the fool, [Sam,] going on hop-
ing and toiling. You could have lain down and gone to sleep
together [with Frodo] days ago, if you hadn't been so dogged.
But you'll die just the same, or worse. You might just as well lie
down now and give it up. You'll never get to the top anyway.
(3.216)
Sam refuses to surrender to such hopelessness. Instead, he carries
Frodo all the way to the summit of the volcanic mountain. There
Frodo exerts his utmost—albeit finally insufficient—energy against
Sauron. They both go on "hoping and toiling" without any reason
other than the worthiness of their Quest. Yet their determination is
not entirely hopeless and their heroism is not entirely pagan. On at

least three occasions, they receive a glimpse of the transcendent
hope that assures the ultimate success of their Quest.
Hope Brought by the Return of the True King

Aragorn is a central member of the Fellowship because he is the
heir of Isildur, the king who had seized the Ring from Sauron by
cutting it off his finger. Aragorn also wields Isildur's once-broken
sword that has now been reforged, an instrument not only of great
power but also of true authority. With Eomer succeeding Theoden
as king of Rohan, and thus with the maintenance of royal rule, the
elves have hope that Moria will be protected from the ravages of
Sauron. But the northwestern lands of Middle-earth will be well
ruled only if Aragorn also returns as king of Gondor and Arnor.
The hobbits also have much at stake in Aragorn's rightful resump-
tion of his kingship, since the Shire is part of Arnor, and since Mor-
dor borders on Gondor. Evil is never a spiritual or disembodied
reality in Tolkien's work; it is a political, social, and geographical
threat.
The hobbits themselves have no need of a ruler, since they live
in splendid concord—with the exception of such family rivalries
as the one between the Bagginses and the Sackville-Bagginses!
They have no written laws, no police (except for a Shirriff or two,
as well as the Bounders who patrol the borders of the Shire), nor
any civic officers except for the mayor. Even so, the residents of
Hobbiton and Bree have a huge investment in Aragorn's return as
king, since he will prohibit all human intrusions into the Shire, this
last little corner of unspoiled life within Middle-earth.
With this exception, Tolkien held that all other peoples require
a just ruler. Both as a monarchist and a Christian, he held that the
good king (or the good queen) is the representative ideal citizen:
the person who, by virtue of lineage and office, represents the
people at their best, fulfilling their noblest possibilities. For a good
monarch to reign, it follows, is for the entire people to be exalted,
even—indeed, especially—the lowliest. It is noteworthy that
Aragorn seeks to rescue the youngest and most vulnerable mem-
bers of the Fellowship, Merry and Pippin, when they are captured
by ores. He seeks the good of the small no less than the great.
A rightful ruler such as Aragorn does not have symbolic power
alone. His majesty's government is obliged to promote the com-
monweal in the most important ways: to curtail the evils that
undermine a just society and to promote the goods that sustain it.
To have no true and just ruler is, by contrast, to suffer the worst of
all calamities. It means that the people have no real life. True exis-
tence, whether ancient or modern, is never merely private but also
and always public; it is found in the polis—the city or the village.
For these reasons, the political question—the question of the
rightly ordered civic realm—always looms large in The Lord of the
Rings. The crowning of Aragorn is, in many ways, the climactic
moment of the novel.
Though first disguised as Strider, lest his true identity be found
out and he be thwarted in reclaiming his kingship, Aragorn gradu-
ally makes evident his right to the office. When he first confronts
Eomer to ask for his help, Aragorn declares his royal status as the
heir of Elendil and Isildur. What would seem vain and arrogant to
an egalitarian world such as ours is, for Tolkien, the essence of real
authority:
Aragorn threw back his cloak. The elven-sheath glittered as he
grasped it, and the bright blade of Andiiril shone like sudden
flame as he swept it out. "Elendil," he cried. "I am Aragorn son
of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, Diinadan, the
heir of Isildur Elendil's son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that
was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me?
Choose swiftly!" (2.36)
Aragorn's kingly powers are also made evident when Pippin
foolishly seizes the palantir at Isengard. Gandalf charges Aragorn
to take ownership of it despite the danger. "Dangerous indeed, but
not to all," said Aragorn. "There is one who may claim it by right.
For this assuredly is the palantir of Orthanc from the treasury of
Elendil, set here by the Kings of Gondor. Now my hour draws near.
I will take it. . . . That hour is now come, I think" (2.199-200).
Aragorn replies in terms that seem deliberately to echo Jesus' own
approach to Golgotha, where he would also be crowned king,

albeit of a radically different kind (Mark 14:26).
Aragorn displays his wisdom—and thus his desire to give the
Company hope—by using the palantir to expose himself to
Sauron. He does not reveal himself merely as a man named Strider,
but as the king and ruler of Gondor and Arnor, and thus as the heir
of Elendil and Isildur: "To know that I lived and walked the earth
was a blow to his heart. . . . Sauron has not forgotten Isildur and
the sword of Elendil. Now in the very hour of his great designs the
heir of Isildur and the Sword are revealed, for I showed the blade
re-forged to him. He is not so mighty yet that he is above fear; nay,
doubt ever gnaws him" (3.53-54). Sauron is bitten with worry not
only because Aragorn is mighty but also because he is righteous:
regal goodness is a dire threat to the prince of evil. And in turning
all of his wrath on Aragorn at the Black Gate, Sauron was dis-
tracted from noticing the presence of Sam and Frodo as they
clawed their way up his own infernal mountain.
Aragorn embodies hope even in his name. We are told in appen-
dix A that, while he was called Aragorn by his mother, he had been
raised in Rivendell by the elves as Estel, which means "Hope"
(3.338). Gandalf repeatedly uses the word "hope" when speaking
of Aragorn, just as he also employs the returning king's own
prophetic language to describe him: "His time draws near" (3.88).
Aragorn's right to rule is supremely manifest in his having roused
and redeemed the Shadow Host to defeat Sauron's buccaneers at
the haven of Pelargir, and then in leading the assembled forces of
the Free Peoples against Sauron's forces in the victory at Pelennor
Fields. In the midst of that fray, Aragorn meets Eomer who, like
him, is an uncrowned king. But rather than regarding each other as
rivals, "they leaned on their swords and looked on one another and
were glad" (3.123).
It becomes ever more evident that Aragorn's kingship is theo-
logical as well as political. Since in Middle-earth there is no church
with elders or bishops or other religious authorities, Tolkien gives
spiritual power to his monarchs. This is no anomaly. Medieval
kings, ruling by divine right rather than democratic election, were
believed to have supernatural powers of healing. Thus does
Aragorn heal the wounded Eowyn and Faramir—using both his

careful knowledge of herb lore as well as his majestic presence—
after they have both been gravely wounded at the battle of Pelen-
nor Fields. An aphorism from ancient tradition thus proves
prophetic, as loreth, a wise woman of Gondor, declares: "The
hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so shall the right-
ful king be known" (3.139).
The attack led by Aragorn on the Black Gate of Mordor seems
quite hopeless. Even with their army often thousand, the amassed
forces of the Free Peoples are but grist for Sauron's military
machine, the hosts of Mordor. As Aragorn instructs his soldiers
before the battle, therefore, he speaks with the realism of a true
king, refusing to goad them with either heroic promises of victory
or equally heroic assurances of defeat: "We come now to the very
brink, where hope and despair are akin. To waver is to fall"
(3.156). When Prince Imrahil, one of the bravest Captains of the
West, suggests that Sauron will laugh in his scorn for the pitiful
armies assaulting his Black Gate, Aragorn insists that this final bat-
tle is no laughing matter. They have come to do their duty, in the
hope that their Quest will be vindicated, whether they triumph or
are slaughtered:
"If this be jest, then it is too bitter for laughter. Nay, it is the last
move in a great jeopardy, and for one side or other it will bring
the end of the game." Then he drew Andiiril and held it up glit-
tering in the sun. "You shall not be sheathed again until the last
battle is fought," he said. (3.158)
The armies of the West are indeed on the brink of defeat when sud-
denly a huge shadow, like "a vast threatening hand," reaches out of
Mordor toward them, "terrible but impotent," and then vanishes,
blown away by the wind (3.227). Sauron's forces flee in horror, we
know, because Gollum has tumbled into the Cracks of Mount Doom
and melted the Ring, at the same time destroying Sauron and robbing
his minions of all their might. The Sauronic soldiers had fought in
fear and loathing of their master, yet in sure confidence of victory.
Now they have neither cause to prod them, and so they flee in terror.
Yet the victory over Sauron that is won with the destruction of the
Ring will not have its earthly realization until Lord Aragorn has
been crowned king, for only when right political order has been re-
established can true hope be restored.
In a scene of elaborate pomp and magnificent ceremony,
Faramir the Steward of Gondor welcomes Aragorn to Minas Tirith
for his coronation. But when Faramir offers the crown to Aragorn,
he declines to make himself king. This is a remarkable departure
from ancient custom, where the king often elevated himself as lord
over all others in an act of self-investiture. Instead, Aragorn hands
the crown back to Faramir, insisting that he give it to Frodo the
Ring-bearer, who in turn will give it to Gandalf for the actual coro-
nation. By means of this remarkable chain of deference, Aragorn
honors the noblest of the mortal and supermortal creatures to
whom he owes his restored kingship: the lowly hobbit who bore
the Ring back to Mount Doom, and the great wizard who guided
them all along their Quest.
After Aragorn kneels to receive the crown from Gandalf, and
then rises to his feet, there is a hugely significant pause. The regal
celebrations begin only after the people have witnessed a virtual
epiphany, a revelation of their king as more than an earthly ruler—
as their true lord and master. Because Aragorn is disclosed as their
rightful king, they are able also to behold what they themselves are
at their best. Tolkien borrows metaphors from both Testaments
(Dan. 7:9; John 19:14) to hymn the transcendent glory and hope
embodied in Aragorn's kingship:
[W]hen Aragorn arose all that beheld him gazed in silence, for it
seemed to them that he was revealed to them now for the first
time. Tall as the sea-kings of old, he stood above all that were
near; ancient of days he seemed and yet in theflowerof manhood;
and wisdom sat upon his brow, and strength and healing were in
his hands, and a light was about him. And then Faramir cried:
"Behold the King!" (3.246)
Hope beyond the Walls of the World

Although Aragorn's wedding to Arwen soon follows his crowning
as king, and although he undertakes a massive reconstruction pro-
gram to recover the lost splendor of Arnor and Gondor, we learn

in The History of Middle-earth that Aragorn was succeeded by
unworthy kings. The hope engendered by the reign of a true king,
Tolkien reveals, cannot finally suffice. Nor do the lives of Aragorn
and Arwen themselves end happily. On the contrary, they are
immensely sad. Aragorn elects to die of his own will rather than to
dodder off into senility and misrule. Enabling his well-prepared
son Eldarion to succeed to the throne, Aragorn lays "himself down
after the manner of the ancient kings of Numenor, and died, in the
hundred and second year of his reign and the hundred and nineti-
eth year of his life" (PM, 244). Aragorn's parting words to Arwen
are poignant indeed: "In sorrow we must go, but not in despair.
Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and
beyond them is more than memory. Farewell!" (3.344).
What this "beyond" might mean is already implicit in the death
of Aragorn. His corpse is virtually beatified, as if his body were
imbued with the same glory and sanctity that were disclosed at his
coronation: "Then a great beauty was revealed in him, so that all
who came after there looked on him in wonder; for they saw that
the grace of his youth, and the valour of his manhood, and the wis-
dom and majesty of his age were blended together. And long there
he lay, an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men in glory
undimmed before the breaking of the world" (3.344). Having
grown "cold and grey as nightfall in winter that comes without a
star," Arwen soon chooses to follow Aragorn, surrendering her
elven immortality to be joined with him in death. The description
of her burial contains another hint of resurrection: "[S]he laid her-
self to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until
the world is changed." This is the same phrase that we have already
encountered in The Hobbit, as Tolkien obliquely suggests, yet
again, a hope for radically renewed life beyond "the circles of the
world."
Christian hope concerns precisely this radical change that
breaks the cycle of the world's endless turning. It takes the natural
human aspiration to happiness and reorders it to the Kingdom of
heaven. Such hope is not a general optimism about the nature of
things, nor a forward-looking confidence that all will eventually be
well. Instead, it is hope in a future that God alone both can and will
provide. "For thou, O Lord, art my hope, my trust, O LORD, from
my youth" (Ps. 71:5). "Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those
who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may
deliver their soul from death, and keep them alive in famine" (Ps.
33:18-19). The radically future-oriented character of Christian
hope—the conviction that salvation in this life is never complete—
can hardly be denied. Christian hope springs from the faith that
what God has begun in Israel and Christ, he will consummate on
the Last Day. This hope of eternal beatitude preserves Christians
from discouragement, sustains them when they have been aban-
doned, protects them from the selfishness of despair, and prompts
them to acts of charity. It gives faith its real motive force:
[T]he creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but
by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation
itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the
glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole
creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not
only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of
the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the
redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now
hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with
patience. (Rom. 8:20-25)
While it is impossible for any member of the Company ever to
voice such a distinctively Christian hope, they all stake their lives
on a future realization of the Good beyond the bounds of the world.
We have seen repeatedly how their devotion to the Quest does not
depend upon any sort of certainty concerning its success. They are
called to be faithful rather than victorious. Often the Fellowship
finds its profoundest hope when the prospects seem bleakest.
Near the end of their wearying journey, Frodo and Sam are
alone, deep within Mordor, crawling like mere insects across a vast
wilderness. All their efforts seem finally to have failed. Even if
somehow they succeed in destroying the Ring, there is no likeli-
hood that they will survive, or that anyone will ever hear of their
valiant deed. They seem doomed to oblivion. Yet amidst such
apparent hopelessness, Sam—the peasant hobbit who, despite his

humble origins, has gradually emerged as a figure of great moral
and spiritual insight—beholds a single star shimmering above the
dark clouds of Mordor:
The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the for-
saken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and
cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was
only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty
for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower [of Cirith
Ungol] had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was
thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even
his master's, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the
brambles and laid himself by Frodo's side, and putting away all
fear he cast himself into a deep and untroubled sleep. (3.199)
This meditation is noteworthy on several counts. Fearing Gol-
lum's treachery, Sam has never before allowed himself to sleep
while Frodo also slept. That he should do so now is a sign of tran-
scendent hope—the conviction, namely, that their ultimate well-
being lies beyond any foiling of it by Gollum's deceit or Sauron's
sorcery. For Sam the consummate loyalist not to be vexed by
Frodo's fate is for him to have found hope in a future that will last,
no matter the outcome of their errand. More remarkable still is
Sam's discernment of the relative power of good and evil, light and
darkness, life and death, hope and despair. The vast darkened sky
of Mordor, illumined by only a single star, would seem to signal
the triumph of evil once and for all. Yet Sam is not bound by the
logic of the obvious. He sees that star and shadow are not locked
in a dualistic combat of equals, nor are they engaged in a battle
whose outcome remains uncertain. He discerns the deep and para-
doxical truth that the dark has no meaning apart from the light.
Light is both the primal and the final reality, not the night that seeks
to quench it. The single flickering star, Sam sees, penetrates and
defines the gargantuan gloom. "The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5).
Sam's metaphysical insight, excellent though it is, cannot be
sustained apart from a Fellowship such as the nine friends have
formed and a Quest such as they have been charged to fulfill. It also
requires a sustaining Story—one that is rooted in their history and

that sums up and embodies not only their own struggle against
Sauron but also the struggle of all the Free Peoples of Middle-earth
against similar evils. The Jews repeatedly rehearse the story of
their deliverance from Egyptian bondage as the single narrative of
Yahweh's election and formation of Israel to be his own people. It
is their means of keeping their own hope alive amidst exile and
defeat. So it is with Christians. In both its preaching and sacra-
ments, in its creeds and hymns and prayers, the church rehearses
its founding and shaping Story—the account of God's act in the
life and death and resurrection and return of Jesus Christ—as the
one abiding hope not only for the church but also for the whole
world.
Again, it is given to none other than Samwise Gamgee to dis-
cover the necessity of living according to the right Story if we are
to have real hope. In the Tower of Cirith Ungol, as he and Frodo
have begun to doubt whether their Quest will ever succeed, Sam
seeks to distinguish between tales that really matter and those that
do not. There are many competing stories that vie for our loyalty,
and Sam is trying to distinguish them, to locate the one hope-
giving Story:
"We shouldn't be here at all," [Sam says to Frodo], "if we'd

known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often
that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr.
Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that
they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and
looked for, because they wanted them, because they were
exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might
say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mat-
tered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been
just landed in them, usually—their paths were laid that way, as
you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of
turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't
know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about
those as just went on—and not all to a good end, mind you; at
least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a
good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all
right, though not quite the same—like old Mr. Bilbo. But those
aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the
best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of tale we've
fallen into?" (2.320-21)
Already Sam has discerned the crucial divide. On the one hand,
the tales that do not matter concern there-and-back-again adven-
tures—escapades undertaken because we are bored and thus seek
excitement and entertainment. The tales that rivet the mind, on the
other hand, involve a Quest that we do not choose for ourselves.
Instead, we find ourselves embarked upon a journey or mission
quite apart from our choosing. What counts, says Sam, is not
whether the Quest succeeds but whether we turn back or slog
ahead. One reason for not giving up, not quitting, is that the great
tales are told about those who refused to surrender—those who
ventured forward in hope.
As long as we are inside a Quest, Sam adds, we assume that it's
a good one only if it has a good ending. But once we are outside
it, we discover that perhaps the best stories do not have cheerful
conclusions. Real heroism, Sam implies, requires us to struggle
with hope, yet without the assurance of victory. Good endings may
signal a too-easy victory that does not deepen our souls, while an
unhappy conclusion reached nobly may be the mark of real char-
acter. Frodo interjects the idea that it's best not to know whether
we are acting out a happy tale or a sad one. If we were assured of
a happy destiny, then we would become presumptuous and com-
placent; if a sad one, then cynical and despairing. In neither case
would we live and struggle by means of real hope.
Sam notes that Galadriel's star-glass, made with the light of the
original Silmarils, involves them not in their own tale alone, but in
a much larger one. "Don't the great tales ever end?" he asks. Frodo
answers wisely in the negative. Each individual story—even the
story of other fellowships and companies—is sure to end. But when
our own story is done, he adds, someone else will take the one great
tale forward to either a better or worse moment in its ongoing
drama. What matters, Sam wisely concludes, is that we enact our
proper role in an infinitely larger Story than our own little narrative:
"Things done and over and made into part of the great tales are dif-
ferent. Why, even Gollum might be good in a tale" (2.322).
Sam has here plumbed the depths of real hope. The "great tales"
stand apart from mere adventures because they belong to the One
Great Story. It is a story not only of those who fight heroically
against evil, but also of those who are unwilling to exterminate such
an enemy as Gollum. As Sam discerns, this Tale finds a surprising
place even for evil. For it is not only the story of the stolen Silmar-
ils and the destruction of the Ruling Ring, but the saga of Iluvatar's
entire cosmos—the narrative that moves from Creation through
Calamity, on to Counter-Action, and finally to Correction and Con-
summation. To complete such a Quest requires the highest of all
virtues: hope as well as faith working through love (Gal. 5:6).
The Love That Forgives
Hope and faith shall eventually pass away, but love shall abide for-
ever. In Paradise there will be no need for faith, because God will
be directly known. Neither shall there be any need for hope, for all
that has been rightly yearned and longed for shall be fulfilled. Love
alone will last unendingly because it unites us both with God and
everyone else. Indeed, it defines who God is and who we are meant
to be. Love as a theological virtue is not a natural human capacity,
not a product of human willing and striving even at their highest.
Because charity constitutes the triune God's own essence, it is
always a gift and thus also a command.
About this matter as about so much else, Christians and Jews
are fundamentally agreed. There is no Old Testament God of wrath
set over against a New Testament God of love. Quite to the con-
trary, there is but a single covenant of the one God given to his peo-
ple Israel and renewed in his son Jesus Christ. The shema calls
Israel to love God in order to keep his commandments: "Hear, O
Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the
LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with
all your might" (Deut. 6:4-5). When Jesus adds his own corollary
to this first and greatest commandment, he derives it from the Old
Testament: "you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the

LORD" (Lev. 19:18). The very character of God is mercy:
The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abound-

ing in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep
his anger for ever. He does not deal with us according to our
sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities. For as the heav-
ens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward
those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far
does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father pities his
children, so the LORD pities those who fear him. For he knows
our frame; he remembers that we are dust. (Ps. 103:8-14)
In both Testaments, the heart of God's love—and thus the real

impetus for human love—is forgiveness. Repeatedly Yahweh
refuses to destroy his unfaithful people, to break his covenant that
they have repeatedly violated. The prophet Hosea complains to
Yahweh about his wayward and wanton wife, and yet the Holy One
abjures Hosea to buy back—to redeem—his harlot spouse. So has
Israel played the prostitute to Yahweh, lusting after false gods. Yet
the Lord refuses to divorce his faithless people: "And I will make
for you a covenant on that day.... And I will betroth you to me for
ever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in
steadfast love, and in mercy" (Hos. 2:18-19). The supreme love
command in the New Testament is found in Jesus' charge to his
followers that they forgive their enemies: "You have heard that it
was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But
I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute
you" (Matt. 5:43-44). Such love is possible only because God has
had mercy on us who are his real adversaries, on us who have slain
his Son: "But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet
sinners Christ died for us. . . . [Wjhile we were enemies we were
reconciled to God" (Rom. 5:8,10). Thus is God himself called "the
Father of mercies" (2 Cor. 1:3).
Nowhere is The Lord of the Rings made more manifestly Chris-
tian than in its privileging of pity—mercy and forgiveness—as its
central virtue. The summons to pity is voiced most clearly by Gan-
dalf after Frodo expresses his outrage that Bilbo had the chance to
kill the wicked Gollum but did not. Frodo has cause for his fury.
Gollum was in fact seeking to slay Bilbo, and had Bilbo not put on
the Ring to escape him, there is little doubt that Gollum would
have succeeded in murdering Frodo's kinsman. Why, asks Frodo,
should Bilbo have not given Gollum the justice he so fully
deserved? Gandalf answers with a speech that lies at the moral and
religious center of the entire epic:
"What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, [Frodo
declares,] when he had a chance!"
"Pity? [Gandalf replies.] It was Pity that stayed his hand.
Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been
well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that [Bilbo] took so little hurt
from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his own-
ership of the Ring so. With Pity."
"I am sorry," said Frodo. "But I am frightened; and I do not
feel any pity for Gollum."
"You have not seen him," Gandalf broke in.
"No, and I don't want to," said Frodo. ". . . Now at any rate
he is as bad as an Ore, and just an enemy. He deserves death."
"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death.
And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then
do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the
very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gol-
lum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And
he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that
he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and
when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many—
yours not least." (1.68-69)
"The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many" is the only dec-
laration to be repeated in all three volumes of The Lord of the
Rings. It is indeed the leitmotiv of Tolkien's epic, its animating
theme, its Christian epicenter as well as its circumference. Gan-
dalf's prophecy is true in the literal sense, for the same vile Gol-
lum whom Bilbo had spared long ago finally enables the Ring's
destruction. The wizard's saying is also true in the spiritual sense.
For in this speech Gandalf lays out a decidedly non-pagan notion
of mercy. As a creature far more sinning than sinned against, Gol-
lum deserves his misery. He has committed Cain's sin in acquiring

the Ring, slaying his cousin and friend. Yet while the Ring
extended Gollum's life by five centuries and enabled him endlessly
to relish raw fish, it has also made him utterly wretched. Evil is its
own worst torment—as Gandalf urges Frodo to notice: "You have
not seen him."
There is still a deeper reason for Gandalf's insistence on pity. In
response to Frodo's demand that Gollum be given justice, the wiz-
ard offers a profound reading of mercy—the one remedy to Gol-
lum's desolate condition. If all died who deserved punishment,
says Gandalf, perhaps none would live. Many perish, he adds, who
are worthy of life, and yet who can restore them? Gandalf supplies
the answer to his own rhetorical question: none. Be exceedingly
chary, he warns Frodo, about judging others and sentencing them
to death. Though Gandalf speaks here of literal death, there are
other kinds of death—scorn, contempt, dismissal—that such judg-
ment could render. Frodo is in danger, Gandalf sees, of commit-
ting the subtlest and deadliest of all sins—self-righteousness.
"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pro-
nounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the
measure you get" (Matt. 7:1-2).
If Frodo assesses Gollum by any other standard than his own
escape from well-deserved punishment—insisting that Gollum be
given justice, when Frodo himself has been given grace—he is in
dread danger of presumption. Neither hobbits nor humans, Tolkien
suggests, can live by the bread of merit alone. Gollum is not to be
executed, though he may well deserve death, precisely because he
is a fellow sinner, a fallen creature of feeble frame, a comrade in
the stuff of dust. Gandalf admits that there is not much hope for
Gollum's return to the creaturely circle, but neither is there much
hope for many others, perhaps not even for most. To deny them
such hope, Gandalf concludes, is to deny it also to oneself.
Tolkien runs a risk of miscomprehension in having Gandalf
extol pity rather than mercy. In our world, pity implies a degrad-
ing act of condescension, a patronizing good deed performed by
someone in a superior position for the sake of someone presum-
ably inferior. Tolkien the linguist knows, on the contrary, that pity
is rooted in the Latin pietas. Far from disparaging the one who is
given it, pity establishes the fundamental solidarity of giver and
receiver. Pity understood as pietas entails responsibility, duty,
devotion, kindness, tenderness, even loyalty. In commending
Bilbo's pity for Gollum, therefore, Gandalf is urging Frodo to
acknowledge his elemental kinship with "that vile creature."
Gandalf's discourse on pity also marks the huge distance
between Tolkien's book and the heroic world that is its inspiration.
Among most ancient and pagan cultures—like their modern coun-
terparts—pity is not a virtue. The Greeks, for example, extend pity
only to the pathetic, the helpless, those who are able to do little or
nothing for themselves. When Aristotle says that the function of
tragic drama is to arouse fear and pity, he refers to the fate of a
character such as Oedipus. We are to fear that Oedipus's fate might
somehow be ours, and we are to pity him for the ineluctable cir-
cumstances of his life, his unjust fate. But pity is never to be given
to the unjust or the undeserving, for such mercy would deny them
the justice that they surely merit. Mercy of this kind—the kind that
is so central to biblical faith—would indeed be a vice.
According to the warrior ethic of the ancient North, the offering
of pardon to enemies is unthinkable: they must be utterly defeated.
For Tolkien the Christian, by contrast, love understood as mercy
and pity is essential: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall
love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love
your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.... For if you
love those who love you, what reward have you?" (Matt. 5:43-44,
46). Here we see the crucial distinction between philia as the love
of friends who share our deepest concerns and agape as the love
of those who are not only radically "other" to us, but who deserve
our scorn and cannot reciprocate our pardon. We can make friends
only with those whose convictions we share, but we are called to
have pity for those whom we do not trust, even our enemies.
It is precisely such pity that Gandalf offers to Saruman after the
battle of Helm's Deep. As we have seen, Saruman rejects it in the
most vehement and scornful terms. Having at last learned Gan-
dalf's central teaching, Frodo offers pardon to Saruman one last
time—after the Ring has been destroyed and the hobbits are scour-
ing the Shire of the evils that have been visited on it by Saruman
and his thugs. Once Saruman is captured, there is a clamor that he
be killed. In fact, Saruman courts his own execution by mocking
his captors. But Frodo will have none of it: "I will not have him
slain. It is useless to meet revenge with revenge: it will heal noth-
ing" (3.298). Instead of receiving such mercy gladly, Saruman
seeks to stab Frodo. Though Sam is ready to give Saruman the final
sword thrust, Frodo again denies the villain the justice that he is
due. He will not deal out judgment in death, knowing that, if Saru-
man dies in such rage, his life as a wizard will have indeed come
to nothing—and perhaps worse than nothing:
"No, Sam!" said Frodo. "Do not kill him even now. For he has
not hurt me. And in any case I do not wish him to be slain in this
evil mood. He was great once, of a noble kind that we should
not dare to raise our hands against. He is fallen, and his cure is
beyond us; but I would still spare him, in the hope that he may
find it." (3.299)
Then follows one of the most revealing scenes in the entire epic.
Instead of receiving this second grant of pity, Saruman is rendered
furious by it. He knows that, in showing him pity, Frodo has
removed the wizard's very reason for being. Frodo's pardon robs
Saruman of his delicious self-pity, his self-justifying resentment,
his self-sustaining fury. Having come to batten on his wrath, Saru-
man flings Frodo's pity back at him in a sputter of acrimony: "You
have grown, Halfling," he said. "Yes, you have grown very much.
You are wise, and cruel. You have robbed my revenge of sweet-
ness, and now I must go hence in bitterness, in debt to your mercy.
I hate it and you!" (3.299).
While revenge curdles the soul and paralyzes the will, pity
frees those who will receive it. Repentance does not produce for-
giveness, Tolkien shows, but rather the other way around: mercy
enables contrition. This is made especially evident when Aragorn
orders the assault on the Black Gate of Mordor. He knows that
many of his troops are incapable of facing the Sauronic evil: "So
desolate were those places and so deep the horror that lay on them
that some of the host [the army of the Free Peoples] were
unmanned, and they could neither walk nor ride further north."
Rather than scorning their fear at having to fight "like men in a
hideous dream made true," Aragorn has pity on them. He urges
them to turn back with honor and dignity, not running but walk-
ing, seeking to find some other task that might aid the war against
Sauron. Aragorn's mercy has a stunning effect. In some of the
warriors, it overcomes their fear and enables them to rejoin the
fray. Others take hope from Aragorn's pardon, encouraged to hear
that there is "a manful deed within their measure" (3.162). And so
they depart in peace rather than shame. This is the pity that Saru-
man bitterly rejected, for it would have called him out of his cow-
ardly hatred and sweet revenge into a life of service and virtue.
Perhaps the most poignant scene of pardon in The Lord of the
Rings occurs with the death of Boromir. He would seem to be the
Judas of the story, for it is he who breaks the Fellowship by trying
to seize the Ring from Frodo. Frodo in turn is forced to wear it in
order to escape—not the ores or the Ringwraiths or even Saruman,
but Boromir his friend and fellow member of the Company. But no
sooner has Boromir seen the horror that he has committed than he
recognizes and repents of it: "What have I done? Frodo, Frodo!"
he called. "Come back! A madness took me, but it has passed"
(1.416). It is too late in the literal sense, because Frodo has already
fled. But it is not too late for Boromir's redemption. He makes
good on his solitary confession of sin by fighting ores until they
finally overcome him.
When Aragorn and Legolas and Gimli at last hear the horn of
the desperate Boromir, they run to him, only to find him dying.
Boromir does not boast of his valor in death, nor does Aragorn
accuse him of evil. Perhaps because he can discern Aragorn's for-
giving spirit, Boromir admits his sin, as if the future king were also
a priest hearing his last confession: "I tried to take the Ring from
Frodo," he said. "I am sorry. I have paid" (2.16). Boromir does not
mean that he has recompensed for his dreadful attempt to seize the
Ring. He means that he has paid the terrible price of breaking trust
with Frodo. In almost his last breath, therefore, Boromir confesses
that he has failed.
Aragorn will not let Boromir die in the conviction that his whole
life has been ruined by a momentary act of madness—even though

it was prompted by Boromir's arrogant confidence in his own
courage. Rather than pointing to his terrible guilt in betraying
Frodo and the Company, Aragorn absolves the dying hero by
emphasizing the real penance Boromir has performed in fighting
evil to the end, even when no one was present to witness his deed:
"'No!' said Aragorn, taking his hand and kissing his brow. 'You
have conquered. Few have gained such a victory. Be at peace!'"
(2.16). We know that Boromir has received his pardon, for his last
gesture is a smile. To confirm Boromir's nobility in both life and
death, Aragorn and the two young hobbits give Boromir a rever-
ent ceremonial funeral by placing his body on a boat and setting
him afloat toward the sea. Many miles away, but at the same hour,
Faramir experienced a mystical vision of his brother's sea burial
and ultimate fate. Faramir saw that, for all his vainglory, Boromir
ended in a state of grace: "Whether he erred or no, of this I am sure:
he died well, achieving some good thing. His face was more beau-
tiful even than in life" (2.278).
"So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these
is love" (1 Cor. 13:13). Paul is not offering any sort of paean to
human love as having its origin and end in our own powers.
Tolkien captures the transcendent, even divine quality of real love
by having it issue in a pity and pardon utterly unknown either to
the warrior cultures of the ancient world or to our own equally
merciless culture of competition. "The pity of Bilbo may rule the
fate of many" is not, therefore, a motto meant only for Middle-
earth. It is the key to our own transformation as well.
Chapter Five
Consummation:
When Middle-earth Shall Be Unmarred
C/ne of the enduring enigmas left by the conclusion to the The

Lord of the Rings is how to deal with its surpassing sadness. The
breakup of the Fellowship is somber enough, but the departure of
Frodo and Gandalf for the Grey Havens is veritably tearful. Frodo
is too worn and wearied by the spiritual terrors that come from
having borne the Ring ever to enjoy the fruits of the Company's
accomplished errand. Gandalf, in turn, must also leave his com-
panions because he has given them his maximum wisdom and
guidance, and because the Third Age of elves and wizards is now
ended. The book is over, and yet readers want to the story to con-
tinue. We can find considerable solace in Sam Gamgee's immense
moral growth, especially since Frodo predicts that he will become
the mayor of Hobbiton. Yet the long-term prospects for Middle-
earth hardly seem to give cause for rejoicing. The occasional ref-
erences to "when the world will be changed" are only vaguely
hopeful, and nothing distinctively Christian can be garnered from
them.
Why, then, is the history of Middle-earth not caught in an end-
lessly downward spiral toward final defeat and death? Why, if in
the end Arda itself will be destroyed and Valinor with it, is there
not cause to despair? Why, in the meantime, does the Fourth Age
of Men not promise a future altogether as disconsolate as the mor-
talism—where Chaos and Unreason finally triumph—of both
ancient and modern paganism? Of all the Free Peoples in Middle-
156
Consummation 157
earth, our own species has acquitted itself perhaps least well.
Melkor's seductions have proved ever so fatal to our humankind,
especially given our fear of death and the many temptations that
this dread of dying brings with it. Why, given such a dispiriting
forecast about the human future of Middle-earth, should Tolkien
not be charged with an abiding antimodernism, and with a bilious
misanthropy as well: a fundamental contempt for his own human
race?
The answer lies in what Christopher Tolkien called a "very
remarkable and hitherto unknown work" (MR, 303), "The Debate
of Finrod and Andreth." Perhaps written in the late 1950s, it con-
tains a stunning prophecy of Iluvatar's own eventual entry into
Middle-earth history. Such an Incarnation is devoutly to be
wished, for it would thereby link Tolkien's imaginative world with
Christian revelation in an explicit way. It would also reveal the real
hope that Tolkien holds out for the Age of Men that dawns at the
ending of The Lord of the Rings. And as we have noticed through-
out this study, hope for Middle-earth's hobbits and men—who are
both creatures of our own kind—is always hope for us as well.
It is important to follow the exchange between Andreth and Fin-
rod, for it reveals a great deal about Tolkien's understanding of
death—whether it is natural or unnatural for death to mark the end
of human life, and whether our souls are separable from our bodies.
Finrod is the wisest of the Noldor elves, and Andreth is a woman
similarly steeped in the lore and history and wisdom of Men. They
debate the nature of mortality and what might lie beyond it. Finrod
makes the standard elven argument that men have brief lives
because mortality seems to be their unique gift from Iluvatar.
There is reason to believe that Tolkien himself at least partially
shared this view. As we have seen over again, death comes as an
authentic blessing to the fallen human race. To live forever would
be to suffer an everlasting life of either presumption or despair. In
the elvish view, death is the natural end of human and hobbitic
existence, and it would not strike terror if we were not rebels
against Iluvatar. "Death" argues Finrod, "is but the name that we
give to something that [Melkor] has tainted, and it sounds there-
fore evil; but untainted its name would be good" (MR, 310).
Andreth vigorously disputes Finrod's case. She contends that

Men were not born for death because it does not belong to our
nature. We have become short-lived, she insists, only "through the
malice of the Lord of the Darkness whom [men] do not name"
(MR, 309). In her view, we rightly dread death because it is indeed
the real enemy. The elves cannot understand the evil of death, she
contends, because their species does not experience it, except in
unusual instances—through grief or accident. "To you [death] may
be in pain, it may be bitter and a loss—but only for a time.... For
ye know that in dying you do not leave the world, and that you may
return to life [in Valinor]" (MR, 311). For men, by contrast, death
tracks us down like a hunter slaying its prey. And in Middle-earth
as we now know it, nothing lies beyond death but oblivion:
Be a Man strong, or swift, or bold; be he wise or a fool; be he
evil, or be he in all the deeds of his days just and merciful, let him
love the world or loathe it, he must die and must leave it—and
become carrion that men are fain to hide or to burn. (MR, 311)
Here the debate takes a decisive turn, as Andreth begins to make
her case that, in the beginning, Men were not in fact created in
order to die, but rather were "born to life everlasting, without any
shadow of any end' (MR, 314). This remarkable claim does not
catch Finrod entirely by surprise. He confesses that elves have
often noted a strange human characteristic: whereas the elves are
thoroughly at home in the world, men are not. Men seem to have
a memory of some other life, some other world, from which they
have become alienated and estranged, but to which they seek a
return. "The Eldar [elves] say of Men," Finrod observes, "that they
look at no thing for itself; that if they study it, it is to discover
something else; that if they love it, it is only (so it seems) because
it reminds them of some other dearer thing" (MR, 316).
Thus far, Finrod and Ardeth would seem to be agreeing with the
standard Platonic argument that humans have a deep longing for a
Life beyond life because they have sprung from an eternal world.
Behind the shadow of this mortal life lies the true Life. Having
come from another realm, according to this view, Men are meant
to return to it, whether by dying or by finding a kind of eternity
Consummation 159
within mortal existence itself. From Plato through much of

medieval thought on to Wordsworth and C. S. Lewis, this idea of
immortality has often held sway among Christians and non-
Christians alike.
Precisely at this point Andreth's argument takes a radically non-
Platonic turn. She argues, on the contrary, that man is not a body
(hroa) containing a mind or a soul (fed). The soul is not boxed in
the body as if it were a ghost in a machine. For if this were the case,
then death would contain no real terror, since it would enable men
gladly to shed their mortal existence in favor of the immortal. On
the contrary, our bodies are essential to our souls and minds. A bet-
ter analogy, says Andreth, is to envision the mind-soul as the
Dweller while the body is the House—each being essential to the
other. The House that the Dwellers build and inhabit would have
no purpose without them. The Dwellers, in turn, would have no life
apart from the place wherein they dwell. In which case, she adds,
the severance of the body and soul in death is a dread event—
indeed a calamity caused by Melkor, not Iluvatar. The bodies and
souls of men are meant to be united forever in a living and caring
harmony:
For were it "natural" for the body to be abandoned and die, but
"natural" for the fea to live on, then there would indeed be a
disharmony in Man, and his parts would not be united by love.
His body would be a hindrance at best, or a chain. An imposi-
tion indeed, not a gift.
. . . I hold that in this we are as ye [elves] are, truly Incar-
nates, and that we do not live in our right being and its fullness
save in a union of love and peace between the House and the
Dweller. Wherefore death, which divides them, is a disaster to
both. (MR, 317)
Here Tolkien enables Andreth to remain profoundly faithful to

both the Bible and Christian tradition. Genesis's second creation
account envisions our humanity as an inseparable unity of body and
soul, with death coming as an utterly unnatural intrusion into God's
good creation, once Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. So in the
New Testament as well is death explicitly called "the last enemy to
be destroyed" (1 Cor. 15:26). The all-important Christian doctrine

of the resurrection of the body also confirms Andreth's case that we
have no souls that exist somehow apart from our bodies, but that we
are an indissoluble union of the two. Neither is meant to tyrannize
the other; rather are both to be joined in joy and peace.
The human longing that elves have noticed to persist in men, it
follows, is not a desire for some other world than this one. It is,
instead, a yearning for a return to the harmony and unity between
body and soul that were lost when men became rebels against Ilu-
vatar. Melkor brought death into the world as his means of sun-
dering the spirits and bodies of men from their intended unity.
This, then, is the real calamity called "Arda Marred" (MR, 318).
Here both Finrod and Ardeth begin to discern the answer to the
riddle that has vexed many, perhaps most, of Tolkien's readers:
why does the Age of Men not mark a sure decline from the won-
drous era of elves and wizards? The answer is that, unlike either
wizards or elves, men were created by Iluvatar to cure the death
curse wrought by Melkor. The original errand of Men, Ardeth
insists, is to serve "as agents of the magnificence of Eru: to enlarge
the Music and surpass the Vision of the World" given originally by
Iluvatar to the valar (MR, 318).
Only men can reunite what Melkor divided in death because
they alone, among Iluvatar's creatures, have souls that can virtu-
ally divinize their bodies and thus keep them in perpetual undying
life. As Aquinas taught, the souls of men give their bodies their true
form, their real existence. Thus could the right kind of man restore
the lost body-soul harmony that afflicts men and elves alike:
[T]he fea when it departs must take with it the hroa. And what
can this mean unless it be that the fea shall have the power to
uplift the hroa, as its eternal spouse and companion, into an
endurance everlasting beyond Ea, and beyond Time? Thus
would Arda, or part thereof, be healed not only of the taint of
Melkor, but released even from the limits that were set for it in
the "Vision of Eru" of which the Valar speak. (MR, 318)
Now at last Ardeth brings her argument to its culmination. If
men were originally created for the healing of the marred earth,
Consummation 161
and if this Arda Remade would deliver even the elves themselves
from the gradual fading away of their bodies, as well as their final
destruction at the End of Arda, what new kind of man could pos-
sibly overcome the curse of Melkor called permanent death?
There is but a single answer, Ardeth replies, a single "Old Hope"
that was held by men of ancient times—that Iluvatar himself
should take on earthly life, that the Author of the cosmic drama
should become its lead Actor, "they say that the One will himself
enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the begin-
ning to the end" (MR, 321).
This Tolkienian prophecy of the incarnation of God in Middle-
earth is deeply Christian. Just as the new life wrought in Israel and
Christ is immeasurably greater than the old life lost in Adam and Eve,
so will Arda Healed not be simply old Arda renovated: it will be a
radically new and transformed world—"a third thing and a greater,
and yet the same" (MR, 318), "something new, richer than the 'first
design'" (MR, 333). Thus will the ancient enigma of evil at last be
answered, since Morgofh's disharmony shall contribute, albeit unin-
tentionally, to the final harmony of Iluvatar's grand symphonic work.
Middle-earth will discover the profound truth of Era's declaration
that a "beauty not before conceived [shall] be brought into Ea, and
evil yet be good to have been" (S, 98; emphasis added). Nor will Ilu-
vatar, in order to become incarnate, be required to invade the world
as a stranger and alien, since his Flame Imperishable already perme-
ates all things as their living spirit. As Finrod observes, "He is already
in it, as well as outside But indeed the 'in-dwelling' and the 'out-
living' are not in the same mode" (MR, 322). When Eru enters Arda
to defeat Melkor and to bring the cosmic Drama to its completion,
Tolkien explains in a note, the One will do so in a way that preserves
both his immanence and his transcendence:
Eru could not enter wholly into the world and its history, which
is, however great, only a finite Drama. He must as Author
always remain "outside" the Drama, even though that Drama
depends on His design and His will for its beginning and con-
tinuance, in every detail and moment. Finrod therefore thinks
that He will, when He comes, have to be both "outside" and
inside. (MR, 335)
Tolkien here affirms—albeit in distinctively mythical terms—

the central Christian claim that the Incarnation is not a violation of
human dignity but its wondrous fulfillment and completion. In the
rabbi of Nazareth "the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily" (Col.
2:9). God is at once "inside" and "outside" Jesus Christ—inside as
the incarnate Second Person of the Trinity, outside as the Heavenly
Father who directs the cosmic drama. Hence the Christian claim
that Jesus Christ alone is vere homo, vere deus—true God and true
Man. Hence also Tolkien's claim that the enfleshment of Iluvatar
will occur in Middle-earth precisely as it has occurred in human
history.
It is not alien to the spirit of The Lord of the Rings to conclude
this study by speculating about the form that the Incarnation might
take in Arda. In what era of Middle-earth history and in what kind
of creature would Eru become earthly? Would the One await the
dawning of a glorious Age of Men and there incarnate himself in
an Aragorn-like figure? We know from Tolkien's aborted story
called "The New Shadow" that the era introduced by the kingship
of Aragorn did not bring a long-lived splendor. For while Gondor
and Arnor were restored to something akin to their former great-
ness, the grandeur did not last. Within a hundred years of Mordor's
downfall and Aragorn's death, a New Shadow had arisen. The old
darkness descended afresh because the citizens of Gondor became
complacent, self-satisfied, and restless—bored with the triumph of
"peace, justice and prosperity" (L, 344). Satanistic cults arose,
says Tolkien, and ore games flourished among adolescents (L,
419).
It takes no great originality of mind or imagination to discern
the analogies between such evil mythological times and the world
of either first-century Palestine or twenty-first-century Europe and
America. Yet we must assume that in precisely such a degraded
and decadent world would Iluvatar become incarnate. Whether he
is called Eru or God, the Lord of all things did not take on human
form in the midst of a splendid civilization at its apex—lest he be
worshiped as yet another triumphant earth-deity. Rather did he
enter history in a nation dwelling at the edge of the Roman empire,
and among a people who were negligible by nearly every worldly
Consummation 163
measure. Even among the Jews, the triune God did not assume the
life of a ruler or king, a prophet or philosopher, but rather the role
of a servant: "Christ Jesus,.. . though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied
himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of
men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and
became obedient unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:5-8).
To be a servant is to be liberated from self-concern. It is to be
so fully devoted to the common good that one hardly thinks of
one's own wants and needs at all. Such self-giving commonality is
the essence of life in the Shire, and it is surely the chief reason the
hobbits are entrusted with destroying the Ring. Like others of their
kind, Frodo and Sam, as well as Merry and Pippin, can be trusted
to fulfill so immense a task as the unmaking of the Ring because
they live contentedly, not always yearning for a grander life. Their
virtue is not that they are small-minded but that they truly love and
serve each other. They care little or nothing about accruing either
power or wealth. Even in battle, they refuse to deal in grand
abstractions, crying out, instead, "The Shire!"
The close kinship between the Gospel and the central call of
the Quest is not far to find. Jesus commands his disciples not to
save their lives for their own sake but to lose them for his sake and
the Kingdom. "For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole
world and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for
his life?" (Mark 8:36-37). By the end of the Quest, the entire Fel-
lowship has learned this most basic but also profoundest of all
lessons. Even Sam knew from the beginning that he was not fol-
lowing Frodo merely to see elves and mountains and dragons. He
was undertaking an errand that would require nothing less than
everything. "I know we are going to take a very long road, into
darkness; but I know I can't turn back. . . . I don't rightly know
what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies
ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, sir," he says to
Frodo, "if you understand me" (1.96). Such, simply put, is the
meaning of servanthood in the Kingdom.
So has Bilbo taken little hurt from his many uses of the Ring
because he had mercy on Gollum and because he thought so little
about its potential benefits for himself. Gollum, by contrast,

reveals precisely what a servant is not; he cares only for himself,
speaking always of the Ring as "My Precious." Sam Gamgee is the
ultimate hero of The Lord of the Rings because he is the ultimate
servant. That he wants nothing other than to serve his master Frodo
makes him, if not the greatest of all the hobbits, certainly the most
admirable. "Whoever would be great among you must be your ser-
vant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.
For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to
give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:43^-5).
It is neither idle nor fantastic, I believe, to imagine Iluvatar
entering Arda in the form of a hobbit. The average Jew of Jesus'
day was perhaps little if any larger than Tolkien's hobbits. Yet it is
the size of their souls rather than their bodies that matters. For it is
from such hobbit-souls that the Kingdom of God is truly made—
whether we are considering the Lord and Savior who enfleshes the
triune God, or whether we are numbering his lowliest disciples.
Elrond the Elflord saw this truth from the beginning, when he not
only appointed the members of the Fellowship but also explained
the astonishing nature of their mission: "This quest may be
attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such
is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small
hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are
elsewhere" (1.283).
In the world of Middle-earth, the Consummation of All Things
occurs neither with the fall of Mordor nor the coronation of
Aragorn, but with the coming incarnation of Iluvatar. The One who
orders the life of Ea and Arda, I have argued, may well take the
form of a hobbit—just as God's own incarnation occurred in a
humble Jewish servant. For only in such divine lowliness can Arda
be unmarred. In our own world, the Kingdom still arrives through
this strange strength to be found in self-surrender. "The weakness
of God is stronger than men" (1 Cor. 1:25), Paul declares, for
Christ has assured him that his "power is made perfect in weak-
ness" (2 Cor. 12:9). So it is with Frodo, as he explains to Sam why
he cannot return to Hobbiton at the end of the Quest. Frodo takes
no credit for rescuing his region from Sauron's evil. In fact, his
Consummation 165
verbs shift from the active to the passive voice—from declaring

that he has done his best to save the Shire, suffering wounds that
no hobbitic medicine can heal, to confessing that the Shire has
been saved even when his best did not suffice: "I have been too
deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved,
but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in dan-
ger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may
keep them" (3.309).
The urgent call of the gospel is precisely the summons to give
up even good things, to surrender all coercive power, to lose one's
own life in order that others might find the treasure of the King-
dom. This coming reign of God beyond the walls of the world will
be completed only with the return of the servant-king who has
already inaugurated his Kingdom by losing his own life and by
creating a community of the faithful who will also lose theirs. As
the people of God in the world, the church is empowered by the
Spirit who makes the crucified and risen Lord present, even as it
eagerly awaits his final consummation of all things, when there
shall be a new heaven and a new earth.
Far from dreading the appointed end, Christians work confi-
dently in the task of unmarring the earth. One of our best guides
for this high and holy vocation is the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, espe-
cially The Lord of the Rings. It began in 1930 or 1931 when—per-
haps bored with grading tedious student exams—Tolkien penned
a sentence that had entered his mind uncannily and unbidden: "In
a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." From that modest begin-
ning we have come to our own similarly modest conclusion: Chris-
tians are called to be hobbit-like servants of the King and his
Kingdom. Frodo and Sam are first in the reign of Iluvatar because
they are willing to be last and least among those who "move the
wheels of the world."
Bibliography
Works by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring. 2d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967.
The History of Middle-earth. Vol. 10, Morgoth's Ring: The Later Silmarillion.
Part 1, The Legends of Aman. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1993.
The Hobbit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978.
The Letters ofJ. R. R. Tolkien. Edited by Humphrey Carpenter. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1981.
"The Monsters and the Critics" and Other Essays. Edited by Christopher
Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.
The Peoples of Middle-earth. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1996.
The Return of the King. 2d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967.
The Silmarillion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.
Smith ofWootton Major. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes. Boston: Houghton Mif-
flin, 1978.
The Two Towers. 2d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965.
Related Works
Birzer, Bradley. J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth.
Wilmington, Del.: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2002.
Carpenter, Humphrey. J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1977.
Chance, Jane. Tolkien's Art: "A Mythology for England." London: Macmillan,
1979.
Duriez, Colin. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings: A Guide to Middle-earth. Mah-
wah, N.J.: HiddenSpring, 2001.
Foster, Robert. The Complete Guide to Middle-earth: From The Hobbit to The
Silmarillion. New York: Ballantine, 1978.
166
Bibliography 167
Isaacs, Neil D., and Rose A. Zimbardo. Tolkien and the Critics: Essays on J. R.
R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre
Dame, 1968.
Kocher, Paul. The Master of Middle-earth: The Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972.
Maclntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 2d ed. Notre Dame,
Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1984.
Meilaender, Gilbert C. The Theory and Practice of Virtue. Notre Dame, Ind.: Uni-
versity of Notre Dame, 1984.
Pearce, Joseph. Tolkien: A Celebration: Collected Writings on a Literary Legacy.
San Francisco: Ignatius, 1999.
Pieper, Josef. The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temper-
ance. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston, et al. Notre Dame, Ind.: Uni-
versity of Notre Dame, 1966.
Purtill, Richard. J. R. R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality, and Religion. New ed. San Fran-
cisco: Ignatius Press, 2003.
Shippey, Tom. J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
2001.
Wadell, Paul J. Friendship and the Moral Life. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of
Notre Dame, 1989.
Acknowledgments
1 hese pages constitute a continuation of the copyright page.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Houghton Mifflin Company
and HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd. for permission to quote from
the following copyrighted material:
Excerpts from The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Copyright © 1954, 1965, 1966 by J. R. R. Tolkien. 1954 edition
copyright © renewed 1982 by Christopher R. Tolkien, Michael H. R.
Tolkien, John F. R. Tolkien, and Priscilla M. A. R. Tolkien.
1965/1966 editions copyright © renewed 1993,1994 by Christopher
R. Tolkien, John F. R. Tolkien, and Priscilla M. A. R. Tolkien.
Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company and Harper-
Collins Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Excerpts from The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by
Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien.
Copyright © 1981 by George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd.
Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company and
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Excerpts from The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays
by J. R. R. Tolkien. Copyright © 1983 by Frank Richard
Williamson and Christopher Reuel Tolkien as Executors of the
Estate of J. R. R. Tolkien. Reprinted by permission of Houghton
Mifflin Company and HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. All rights
reserved.
Excerpts from Morgoth 's Ring: The Later Silmarillion by J. R. R.
Tolkien. Copyright © 1993 by Frank Richard Williamson and
Christopher Reuel Tolkien as Executors of the Estate of J. R. R.
168
Acknowledgments 169
Tolkien. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company

and HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Excerpts from The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien. Copy-
right © 1955, 1965, 1966 by J. R. R. Tolkien. 1955 edition copy-
right © renewed 1983 by Christopher R. Tolkien, Michael H. R.
Tolkien, John F. R. Tolkien, and Priscilla M. A. R. Tolkien.
1965/1966 editions copyright © renewed 1993, 1994 by Christo-
pher R. Tolkien, John F. R. Tolkien, and Priscilla M. A. R. Tolkien.
Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company and
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Excerpts from The Silmarillion, Second Edition, by J. R. R.
Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien. Copyright © 1977 by The
J. R. R. Tolkien Copyright Trust and Christopher Reuel Tolkien.
Copyright © 1981 by The J. R. R. Tolkien Copyright Trust. Copy-
right © 1999 by Christopher Reuel Tolkien. Reprinted by permis-
sion of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Excerpts from The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien. Copyright
© 1954, 1965, 1966 by J. R. R. Tolkien. 1954 edition copyright ©
renewed 1982 by Christopher R. Tolkien, Michael H. R. Tolkien,
John F. R. Tolkien, and Priscilla M. A. R. Tolkien. 1965/1966 edi-
tions copyright © renewed 1993, 1994 by Christopher R. Tolkien,
John F. R. Tolkien, and Priscilla M. A. R. Tolkien. Reprinted by
permission of Houghton Mifflin Company and HarperCollins Pub-
lishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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The Gospel According

Westminster John Knox Press

is theological meditation on The Lord of the Rings does not

Tolkien's undeviating practice, his use of "man" and "men" to refer

Tabor United Methodist in Winston-Salem, Park Cities Presbyter-

ere is no denying the permanent appeal of J. R. R. Tolkien's epic

airy lightness gives strength in direct disproportion to its weight.

more heroic for going down to death without hope of victory:

is then miraculously restored to life. Neither is Frodo the allegor-

of fairy-stories. They strike deeper truth than other literary forms

Innocents; (2) the Good Friday-and-Easter event as the eucata-

The Great Symphony of the Creation

1 olkien's world is thoroughly theocentric. It is inescapably God-

The Origin and End of Life

Tolkien's pre-Christian world does not know God as Trinity, but

The Omnipresence of Fate, Death, and Doom

where the defeat of evil is muted by an enormous grief at the depar-

The Essential Goodness of the Natural Order

It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that

realities of the natural world are made fantastically real—con-

The Delights of Bodily Comfort

Sing hey! for the bath at the close of day

is Water Hot that smokes and steams.

and Water Hot poured down the back.

O! Water is fair that leaps on high

The hobbits are unabashed lovers of food, enjoying six meals a

that we are traversing. As with much of modern technology, he

I am in fact a hobbit, in all but size. I like gardens, trees, and

Tolkienian Love of All Things That

Most of the free creatures in Tolkien's world reverence the good

One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them,filledup

Good Magic and Evil Sorcery

tices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a

"masters and possessors of nature." No wonder that Tolkien

[Sauron's] favour; and he learned great sorcery, and knew much of

The Supreme Gift of Speech

God to be the Logos who stands at the beginning of things, even as

Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light

Though words are never adequate to the things they specify,

Unlike our one-dimensional word spirit, these three antique words

Saruman's moral duplicity is not the only evil here condemned.

of a sword-thrust. So does Tolkien's word shirriff remind us that

Ash nazg durbatuliik, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg

Farewell we call to hearth and hall!

To Rivendell, where Elves yet dwell

We must away! We must away!

The Redeeming Hierarchy of Iluvatar's Universe

Tolkien envisions Iliivatar as making the universe into a vast song,

world—whether in Gandalf's swift Shadowfax or Sam's humble

than he was at the beginning of the Quest. The bumbling peasant

grasped. Just as Christ empties himself of his divine eternality in

scheme is Tom Bombadil. On the one hand, he and his spouse

The Moral Challenge of Middle-earth History

The presence of an amoral and ahistorical creature such as Bom-

intrinsically moral and historical. Though it is a magical realm that

Middle-earth resemble northern Europe, with the Shire being some-

The Call to the Life of the Quest

Their stories are later remembered, Sam observes, because these

The Road goes ever on and on

In an earlier version of his song, Bilbo had used the word

way diminishes his conviction that everyone has an "errand"—a

our feet"—i.e., we can avoid being swept away to the permanent

The Calamity of Evil: